


Such is Fate

by impermanent



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Explicit Language, F/F, Homophobic Language, Mentions of the whole homeworld gang, Non-Graphic Violence, alcohol mention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-13 23:30:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 44,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4541610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impermanent/pseuds/impermanent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say college is like a reset button on your life, and that's exactly what Ruby had hoped it would be.</p><p> A set of major moments in the lives of an overly emotional, anxious undeclared major, and a cold, apathetic psyche student.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flunk out

**Author's Note:**

> Little space lesbians needed more love and I needed a way to vent about the trials of being a gay college student.  
> (Edit as of 4/10/2017 Probably should have said this sooner, but this is on hiatus until I graduate and go on my much needed vacation/move/get my fancy corporate job. Expect more come late July!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day of class is never fun

Form the time she was a little girl, Ruby always thought doors could sense fear, guilt, and hurriedness. The hinges would scream when you opened them and the thick wooden frame would clap when you closed them, demanding attention from everyone in the room; but nobody ever blamed the door for the disruption. No, It was always the awkwardly broad little girl with horrible luck and an even worse since of time and direction that became the object of rolling eyes and stern glares and a clipped “Please, find a seat quietly, miss…?”

“Ruby.” She would mutter, biting her lip, and shuffling into the nearest empty seat with her head down. Usually, that was the end of it, but sometimes fate was especially cruel.

After the routine mumbled reply of her name, she found herself stuck. All her other classes were in grand lecture halls, filled with six hundred seats but hardly five hundred students, leaving a plethora of spots at the back for her to quietly vanish from view into, quickly dispelling the wrath of the professor. But this room was small, hardly bigger than her dorm, and filled with barely forty desks, thirty nine of which were taken and the only empty one conveniently placed front and center. Perfect.

After a moments nervous hesitation where she contemplated just running out the same door that had betrayed her, she made it to the seat, her footsteps sounding loud even for someone as stocky as her as the professor refused to continue the course introduction until she was seated.

The chair gave a squeak as she sat, adding insult to injury. Just one more sound, she told herself, one more loud sound before she could start the process of living this down. She cringed before tearing open the flap on her bag like a bandaid, the loud rip of velcrow another nail in her coffin. But as the professor started to speak again, only after a sigh, Ruby assured herself that that was the end of her ordeal. She was prepared. She had a notebook, the required and unreasonably costly text book she would likely never even have to open, and—“Shit” she swore under her breath. No pencil, no pen, not even a high lighter.

A quick glance to her right had her hopeless; the kid there had some kind of fancy tablet they were already typing away on, no way they would have a pen at all. A quick glance to her left had her speechless.

The girl sitting next to her was beautiful, stunningly so, with long curly hair and an outfit that rivaled the professor in fashionable professionalism. Ruby opened her mouth to try to ask, but the girl was thankfully one step ahead of her. 

She reached into her bag, offering Ruby a polka dot decorated pen while saying “You’re in my history class.” her voice was like iced coffee, low and smooth and completely devoid of emotion. It sent a shiver down Ruby's spine that made her smile. She took the girly little pen from her with a sigh of thanks. Maybe she really could get through this, what with a nice girl like this in two of her classes. It sent her mind reeling; she _had_ to get to know her. Maybe they could even study together! 

“You slammed the door fifteen minutes after the lecture started." The voice continued, jostling Ruby out of her thoughts, "Are you always this late?” the other spoke without a change in her stoic expression, closing her bag back up and folding her hands in her lap.

And just like that, Ruby was back to square one. Maybe they were all right, that university wasn't the place for her. Maybe she should just drop the class, after all.


	2. Hypocritical

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2, featuring dry ice Sapphire, and 100% more Amethyst.

After her first day, Ruby had honestly thought she had seen the worst of it. The first order of business after she got back to her dorm, and after she chucked her heavy book bag angrily onto the floor, was to rant to her roommate.

The bag throwing had become a cue of sorts to the other girl since their friendship began in high school, and she came running, excited to hear what had pricked Ruby’s sensitive nerves this time. Seeing Ruby riled up did the same to her, which usually led to some very poor, but very fun decision making.

Ruby started her verbal rampage, completely skipping over the formalities of any greeting to her friend. She quickly got through her two cents on that god awful chemistry professor, kicking off her shoes while complaining that she had taken up the _entire class period_ because apparently that professor needed a full hour and fifty minutes to explain the syllabus, even though every other class she had had let out after hardly half an hour.

“Ugh, and that’s not even the worst part!” She groaned, flinging her hands around wildly as she spoke. “I sit next to this girl-“

“Gross, man.” Amethyst interrupted as she flopped onto her belly, propping herself up comfortable on her hands because she could tell already this was going to be a long one.

“She’s _horrible!_ ” Ruby continued without a pause. “I thought people were supposed to be more mature in college, but apparently not. She’s just like those snooty rich girls.” Ruby spat as she started to pace the small strip of empty space between their beds. “She’s got perfect hair, and perfect clothes, probably a sweaty jock boyfriend, too.”

Amethyst was contently swinging her legs up behind her, listening intently to Ruby’s demise. “Sounds a lot like the girls you liked in high school.” She snickered, knowing full well it was a dangerous move.

But Ruby was too far gone now to really hear her, and honestly, she had an issue with talking over others to begin with. She was already starting less to yell and more to grumble her complaints. “She’s probably dumb as a rock, too. God, I hope so. I would be so angry if she was just little missperfectlikeshemakesherselfouttobe.

“Woah, you gotta speak up, I’m missing all the good parts!”

Ruby stopped in her tracks, turned to Amethyst and balled her hands in the hem of her t-shirt. “You don't understand! She--" Angry tears started to prick the corners of Ruby's eyes and she tried to blink them back, making her throat feel tight and her eyes sting."She was just so mean, Amethyst!” and Ruby’s voice cracked before she could catch herself. She raised a hand to wipe her eyes with the back of a fist.

“Oh boy,” Amethyst sighed, quickly rearranging herself to sit upright, patting the spot next to her on the bed. “Come ‘ere.”  
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
The next week of school wasn’t that bad, to her surprise. Ruby came to class more or less on time, and avoided contact with that horrible pretty girl as much as she could; it was working out great. But all good things must come to an end sooner or later, it just so happened to usually end sooner for Ruby, rather than later.

“You will be working in pairs for the midterm,” The words rang out like a gunshot, calling everyone to nervous attention. Nobody liked group projects, but one tended to like them even less when nobody liked _you_. But it’ll be ok, she told herself with a deep breath. She will go to the back of the room, away from this awful, beautiful girl, find someone probably just as bad at this subject as herself, make it out with a nice C, and—

“To save time, I’ll be picking your partners.” Another shot was fired, ringing out in the quiet of the room.

Ruby felt her stomach sink. But no, no, it’ll be ok. There are forty students, so it’s not really likely—

“Every second student from the left, turn to your right.”

Ruby’s palms started to sweat and she quickly leaned back in her seat, frantically trying to count the pairs on her row from the left side of the room. ‘Two, four, six, eight…that leaves…’

“...Us.” Came the quiet and desperate sounding murmur from the girl next to her.

“Say hello to your new project partner for the next 6 weeks."

Even the sound of her voice made Ruby feel sick. Two hand shot up into the air instantly. “Professor!” came that sickening, silky voice again.

“And I will _not_ be reassigning partners.” The professor said quickly, pointedly turning her back on the class to fiddle with the projector.

Both girls seemed to hold their breath, keeping their hands up for another moment before the other finally put hers down, folding both in her lap prettily as she usually did, only this time her dainty hands were curled into little fists, her manicured nails digging into her palms. Ruby heard her take a deep, calming breath and with it she sucked out any ounce of peace left in Ruby's tiny body. She couldn’t hold herself back anymore.

“You know, I’m not excited about working with you, either.” She snarled, foot tapping in agitation against the desk leg. 

“We’re not going to work together.” The other said calmly, keeping her gaze straight forward as she spoke.

“Oh yeah? You think you can do this project without me or something?” Ruby said, hardly whispering. Her hands laid flat on the desk, then clenched the edge, then flat again. 

“I know I can.” Came that same steady whisper as the lecture hall lights dimmed and the first power point slide shown on the projector.

“What, you think _I’ll_ bring _you_ down?” Ruby retorted, violently shoving her hand into her bag to yank out her notebook and pen. 

“I know you will.” Said the other, the slightest hint of malice in her voice as she mimicked Ruby’s same motion, only in a far more level headed manner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you next time for some sappy girl crushes.


	3. Intoxication Proclamation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Underage drinking is a bad idea and usually so are college parties.
> 
> (no actual drinking of any kind happens, but the disclaimer still stands)

    The only saving grace of this award winningly bad start to freshman year was that she got invited to a party. A _real_  college party. There were supposed to be girls, and booze, and a pool, but honestly Amethyst had sold her to the idea of going at ‘girls.’

    They arrived fashionably late to a drunken chorus of what Ruby could only assumed was Amethyst’s name before they both were swallowed up by a serge of people. Ruby was jostled, shoved, and generally irritated by the time she made it out of the pile, looking down at her hands to see a plastic cup she didn't remember receiving, sloshing over the rim with bright blue liquid. There was no Amethyst near her, only a teasing yell of "Go get 'em, Tiger!" from the crowd. 

    It was then that she started to regret this entire endeavor. What was she supposed to _do_? No one around her was familiar, only loud, tall, more popular, and substantially more intoxicated than she was.

With a wary sniff of her drink, which despite its color seemed to be some citrus flavored thing, she put the cup up to her lips. It didn't take a genius to figure out which of the aforementioned factors she had control over. Right as she tipped her head back to take a swig, something big, solid, and warm came blundering into her.

Ruby spluttered, quickly throwing her now empty cup to the ground in favor of wiping her face, which was a battle already lost seeing as her top was soaked and her skin already starting to feel sticky from the sugary mixture.

  “Hey!” she yelled, whipping around to see this new face to add to her quickly growing shit list, but was greeted instead by a broad, tan chest. She rubbed her eyes, which were starting to sting and burn from the remnants of the alcohol, before an unfortunately familiar grin came into view, accompanied by an equally familiar sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

As it turned out, she may actually know a few people here. “You have got to be _fucking_ kidding me.” Slipped through Ruby’s gritted teeth as the clenched both her fists at her side, ready for the fight before it even started.

“If it isn’t Beach City’s littliest fag,” came the jeering voice over the booming music before a forehead was knocked none too gently against her own, the force knocking the smaller girl back a few steps and into another clump of people.

“Fuck off, _Jasper_.” Ruby spat the name like it burnt her tongue.

“Who even let you in, huh?” Jasper teased as she advanced on Ruby, easily herding the two of them into a corner as the crowd parted in waves behind them. “There’s no way you actually _go_ here.”

Ruby’s back hit a wall and a tide of panicked rage rushed over her. Jasper was a good foot and a half taller, a good hundred pounds stronger, and if history really did tend to repeat itself, she needed to get out of there. That was all the time logic had hold of her actions before every ounce of hatred for this girl, for this loud party, for this week from hell, had bubbled up to snuff it out.

“I do _actually go here_ ” She growled, taking a step forward to stand toe to toe with the larger girl. She would love to stand chest to chest, but that simply wasn’t possible.

Whispers were beginning to erupt around them, followed by pointing fingers, and camera phones pulled from pockets. It was getting bad, and one punch caught on film and brought to the right person’s attention could mean expulsion, but what did she have to lose, anyway? Classes were horrible, classmates were even worse, and it wasn’t as if anyone would be surprised if she came home without a diploma. “So how about you back off,” Ruby reared back a fist, tiny in comparison to the ones clasped at the ready by Jasper’s sides.

However, it wasn’t the fists Ruby should have been worried about. The last thing she saw was a tidal wave of Jasper's hair coming for her before a crashing pain shot through her nose and forehead as the loud crack of a skull to skull collision filled her ears, followed by the hollow thud of her head against drywall. Her vision blurred with flashes of white light, only to refocus on Jasper’s face, grinning hardly an inch from her own. The smell of alcohol and copper mixed sickeningly in Ruby's lungs. 

“H-hey!” came a squawk of a voice from the stairwell above them. It must have been a voice Jasper recognized because the girl broke concentration and looked up; big mistake.

“Don’t fight in the house! O-outside! I don’t care, just not in here.”

But Ruby ignored the warning, partly because that blow to the head made her ears feel like they were filled with wet cotton. She saw her chance for payback and took it, landing a strike with an audible crack to the girl’s nose, than bolted for the nearest door. It was times like these she was grateful for her small stature; even with the pounding pain in her skull, and watery effect it gave her vision, she easily weaved between groups of people, making it out the sliding glass door to the deck. She could taste the safety and freedom of outdoors, but all too quickly her escape came to a very sudden and painful halt.

The next thing she saw were the stars above her, wind knocked completely out of her lungs, her back flat on the deck, and something warm and wet tricking down her chin. She needed to get up, keep going or turn and face this fight head on; it was all over if Jasper caught up to her like this!--

“…Ruby?”

Oh, how cruel was fate. That beautiful voice that made her head hurt even more, which she thought impossible until that very moment, rang through the startled quiet of outside as all eyes were trained on the ruckus she had caused.

Before she could even recover from it, there it was again, asking “how drunk are you?” with a little disgusted wrinkle of her turned up nose before a veil of silvery hair fell over her slim shoulders as she did the unthinkable; she offered Ruby her hand.

That moment stood still for what seemed like minutes as Ruby’s mottled brain tried to process the situation, but it kept getting stuck in a loop on just how soft this girl’s hair looked, how sweet and inviting that outstretched hand was, how stunning she looked in that dress that hugged her curves so perfectly before flaring out behind her… Ruby reached back, noticing only then that her own knuckles were bruised and bloodied and hurt like hell. Their hands met and the girl’s grip was surprisingly firm, skin cool and strangely soothing to the burning bruises.

“You—“ the loud boom of Jasper’s voice accompanied by bang of the sliding door being flung open startled the two as the larger girl loomed in the doorway, wiping away the blood that was steadily dripping down her face with the back of a readied fist. She looked the pair up and down before a smirk spread over her lips, eyes switching targets. “I can’t believe it,” She said, taking slow, lumbering steps towards them. Ruby swore the deck shook with every footfall. “You actually found someone desperate enough to settle so low.”

Ruby had never been one to ditch a fight, certainly not one with Jasper if her high school record had anything to say about it, but things had never really gotten this out of hand, either. In school there were teachers, and hall monitors, and in some cases even the principal to break things up, but here there was no stopping them. Even if Ruby had her bested in technique when she wasn't punch drunk, Jasper clearly had her beat in sheer strength, and no matter how those words made her blood boil, they had kind of lost their touch after four years. As Jasper moved closer, Ruby gave the backyard a quick once over, vision blurring with the movement, looking for a way out. The fence was low enough, but…

Jasper bent down, eye level with the two of them, catching a silky curl of hair between her fingers and leisurely twirling it as she spoke. “You trying to get back at your boyfriend?” she asked with a toothy grin, blood still dripping down her chin like some feral animal. “You need to do a lot better if you want to make him jea—Fuck!“

Ruby’s head felt like an open bowl slowly being filled to the brim with heavy water but none the lass, she whipped around again at the shout. Jasper, now stood up at her full height, was viciously rubbing what honestly looked like teeth marks on the back of her hand.

“Run.” Was the smooth, steady command, followed by a squeeze of their still intertwined hands, and Ruby followed.  
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
The next moments were a blur even as they happened. There was the rush of wind over her face before the solid feeling of concrete under her, the steady pounding of running feet, gasps for breath, and a hand clasped around hers, pulling her forward before everything stopped spinning and came back to focus with a breathy “I think we’re ok now.”

Ruby looked around, more dazed than she could ever remember being in her life. She didn’t know this street, didn’t know where they were or how they had gotten here, really, but still, an overwhelming since of victory washed over her.

“I don’t know what that was all about,” her savior said, pursing her lips in displeasure at Ruby’s dazed grin before continuing, “but you better figure out a way to drag me out of it.” She said before bending down, gathering up a handful of her skirt and tearing.

The sound seemed to echo in this quiet part of town they had escaped to, and it was enough to startle Ruby back to her senses, even if only a little. “W-wait, what are you doing?” She asked anxiously, putting up both hands to try and stop the other girl.

“You’re bleeding all over the place,” She explained simply, before adding “It got ripped jumping the fence, anyway. It doesn’t matter.”

Ruby looked down at herself then, seeing flecks of dark red added to the neon blue stain on her top. She ran her hands down her face, drawing them back smeared with the same color. “Oh,” is all she said quietly, and sniffed.

She took the strip of torn fabric with a mumbled “thanks,” before pressing it to her nose, hoping it would stop the bleeding that, now mentioned, she was very aware had been happening since Jasper’s first, and thankfully only, strike.

They stood in silence for a while, waiting, she guessed, for her nose to stop bleeding but it quickly became apparent she was going to run out of clean fabric before running out of blood. Just as she was about to say something, a hand tugged down on her wrist, coaxing her to join the other girl on the curbside.

“It doesn’t seem like it’s gonna stop any time soon,” she explained as Ruby plopped down next to her. "Here," she offered before grabbing Ruby by the shoulders, pulling her down into her lap before propping Ruby's neck up on one knee, tipping her head back. 

“It’s supposed to help to have your head back like this.” Was all the explanation she gave, stone faced as always, but Ruby hardly heard any of it. Her mind was busy reorienting herself and once it had, began filling itself with copies of the image before her; of this wonderful girl looking down at her, the subtle smell of her perfume drowning out the thick sent of copper in Ruby’s lungs, of the stars above them who’s light shown the same color as her hair and that dimmed in comparison to the color of her eyes, which, come to think of it, Ruby can't remember seeing before now; She had a lot of thick, curly hair with bangs that needed a trim about a month ago and honestly, Ruby tended to avoid looking at her. It made her nervous.

“Wow…” Ruby sighed, and those eyes looked back at her, a hint of a question asked in the motion. “You’re really pretty under all that hair.” Ruby thought, but she felt her lips moving along with it.

Laughter like wind chimes broke out above her, drawing a dopey smile to Ruby’s face. “Oh my god,” escaped before more giggles were muffled behind a small hand while the other pressed her bangs flat. “You must have hit your head _so_ hard.”

Ruby closed her eyes, the dizziness catching up to her now that she was still. She lay enjoying the sound alone before ignoring the previous statement to ask “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Sapphire,” was the answer that eventually reached her ears, and a quiet laugh of her own broke past her smile along with a hoarse “figures as much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slowly adding in more gems! Peridot was the one yelling at them to get the heck out of the house to brawl. She'd asked Jasper to come to break up the fights, not start them. And before anyone gets the wrong idea that I dislike Jasper, let me say she is one of my favorite characters. I wrote her in as a big bully to Ruby and Sapphire because she dislikes Garnet, so it would figure for her to dislike her component parts as well.
> 
> Hold on to your hats because next time its gonna to get gay.


	4. Breakdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amethyst is always right

“Hey, Casanova” were the words Ruby awoke to, followed by the loud creak of bed springs as Amethyst pounced onto the mattress, jostling her into the waking world. “So, did you get her number or what?” She asked excitedly, smiling down at Ruby expectantly.

Ruby blinked open a bleary eye, groaning a confused “What?” Her voice was even hoarser than she had expected. “Who’s number?” she grumbled, already feeling the first pricks of irritation at the back of her stiff neck; Ruby never was a morning person, and the rude awakening paired with how sore every inch of her body felt wasn’t helping her be more pleasant.

Amethyst slapped her hands down on the comforter, the sound startling her friend. “That girl who just left!” she said in disbelief. “You know,” She started, a little exasperated, “Long hair, rockin’ body, you probably slept with her?”

Ruby only squinted back at her, completely lost in this one sided conversation.

“God, how drunk _were_ you last night?”

“ I-I didn’t drink anything!” Ruby jumped to the defense quickly, rubbing her eyes into focus with a wince; her whole face felt like it was bruised. She remembered last night pretty well, unfortunately. She went to that loud party, found Jasper and received her signature greeting, then…something happened with that girl from chemistry whose name she somehow knew now, and…then she woke up in her bed.

“Wait wait wait,” Ruby sat up quickly, very suddenly completely awake. “D-did she have a red dress? That girl that left!” She stammered, grabbing Amethyst by the shoulders.

“I don’t know, man, it’s not my job to remember all your booty calls.” Amethyst shrugged, but the look in her friend’s eyes said this was a life or death matter. Even if she truly didn’t remember, a little lie couldn’t hurt if it meant settling Ruby’s high strung nerves. “I think so, maybe.” She added, prying Ruby’s iron grip off her shoulders. “You’re hurttin’ me, quit it.”

Ruby’s eyes went wide. “That—That was her!” she yelled, easing her death grip in favor of shoving the blankets off of herself, “That’s girl from chemistry!” She leaped out of bed, nearly knocking Amethyst off with her, and hurriedly started trying to shove her feet into her sneakers without untying them; she didn’t have time for that!

“That girl you’re always bitching about?” Amethyst asked with a scowl as she knelt down to help Ruby with her shoes; the other was bound to get irritated enough to break something if she kept struggling on her own for much longer.

“Yes!” Ruby groaned, obviously exasperated that her friend wasn’t keeping up with her manic train of thought.

“Wait, she didn’t—“Amethyst gave Ruby’s sneakers a sloppy bow and stood up, gesturing to the girl’s entire face with concern written on her own, “do this, did she?”

“No, that was Jasper.” Ruby explained like it was of no importance, frantically trying to untangle the arms of a hoodie before pulling it on over her head.

“Woah, hold one a sec,” Amethyst threw out her arms, effectively blocking the door. “Were you the one who broke Jasper’s nose?”

“I gotta find her! Get out of the—“ Ruby stopped dead, Amethyst’s words reaching her through her frenzy and a grin spread over her lips. “Did I seriously break her nose?” She asked as something akin to pride started to swell in her chest.

Amethyst nodded quickly, a grin to match Ruby’s on her own features. “They called the paramedics and everything!”

Their hands met in a quick highfive before Ruby pushed past her, “You gotta tell me everything! B-but later, I have to find Sapphire.” Ruby was out the door before Amethyst could ask any more. “I gotta thank her! She took care of me, she walked me home—“ and that’s all she heard before Ruby was too far down the hall to make out the rest.  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
Ruby knew it was well past class time, but she honestly wouldn’t have gone even if she woke up at a reasonable hour; Amethyst was a master at doctor note forgery and faking the flu while her bruises faded sounded like a better plan than explaining to every professor that she got into a fist fight the night prior. If she hurried, though, she could make it just as chemistry was letting out, catch Sapphire and thank her for saving her, for nursing her wounds, and supposedly for walking her home.

She rounded the corner right as Sapphire did, nearly causing a reenactment of last night’s collision.

“S-Sapphire!” She called excitedly, taking a step back so she wasn’t quite so unreasonably close to the other girl who didn’t even flinch at the sudden proximity. “I’m so glad I found you! I wanted to thank you for last night,” Ruby didn’t realized she was yelling until passersby started to stare, her loud voice almost echoing in the tiled hallway. “F-for walking me home,” she added, much more quietly. “I don’t remember how I got back, but—“

“You fell asleep in my lap.” Sapphire offered dryly. “I had to drag you back.”

Ruby’s face fell. “O-oh…” she said softly, and suddenly going after this girl didn’t sound like as great of an idea as it did in her head. “I’m really sorry, I know I’m heavy,” She reached for the drawstrings on her hoody then, trying to find something to distract the nervous twitch in her hands. “And for dragging you into that fight…”

Sapphire gave low a hum in agreement before shifting her weight as if to walk off, and Ruby sprung back to life.

“No no no, wait!” She said quickly, cutting off Sapphire’s path. “You gotta let me make this up to you! I’ll—“ Ruby’s mouth had always worked faster than she could find words to fill it, but she didn’t have much to offer this girl in the first place. It wasn’t like she could do her homework for a month; Sapphire was easily the smartest person in class, while Ruby struggled to make passing grades.

“I’ll drop the class.” She decided on finally. Sure, it would be a hit to her GPA, but she could take the course next semester, and it was a small price to pay when she could very possibly owe this girl her life, or at the very least, her face.

Ruby glanced up after a moment of no reply to see Sapphire just staring at her, her cold, blank expression quickly becoming unnerving. “Look, I…I’m not smart, ok? I don’t really have money, I don’t know what you want—“

“Let me tutor you.” Sapphire’s quiet voice cut though Ruby’s, and the girl froze.

“… _why_?” This time, Ruby was the one to just stare.

“If you drop, I’ll be assigned another partner.” Sapphire started with a sign, adjusting her book bag to the other shoulder after brushing her long hair out of the way. “ They could be less tolerable than you, and you’re bad enough at this subject that you’ll accept my offer to teach you, where others would only get offended and refuse.”

“That…makes since, I guess.” Ruby agreed slowly, even if it stung a little.

“We’ll meet every Tuesday and Thursday in your dorm at 6 until the exam.” Sapphire said, voice cool and authoritative.

“Ok…” Ruby muttered, still trying to fully comprehend how this scene was unfolding. “B-but you hate me, don’t you? This doesn’t seem fair—“

“I don’t hate you.” The other interrupted, and Ruby could have sworn the girl shied away from her stare for just a moment. “If I did, I would have left you concussed and bleeding on that street corner, so…” Sapphire pursed her lips, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
Ruby had spent the entire morning tidying up her half of the room, while Amethyst basked in her own mess on the other side, jokingly lecturing Ruby on how this one night stand that never was was going to become a friends with benefits kind of deal if she didn’t watch herself.

“Would you stop!” Ruby flung a blanket in Amethyst’s direction; when she didn’t feel like properly putting something of hers away, she could just toss it to the opposite side of the room and blame it on her roommate. She’d get the item back sooner or later. “She’s pretty, yeah, but I don’t like her,” she scoffed, bending down to deposit a pile of undone laundry on Amethyst’s side as well. “She’s weird. It’s like she has no emotion.”

“Yeah, doesn’t sound like your type at all.” Amethyst agreed, wrapping herself up in the blanket. “It’s always easier to get a girl when she’s an emotional wreck, you know?”

Ruby decided then that she had had enough. “Alright, get out.” And pointed Amethyst to the door with a huffy stomp of her foot.

As if on que, a knock sounded over the quiet hum of the radio. Ruby went stock still. It was only five till six, she still had five more minutes and she needed those; her books were still stroon over the floor, her notes crumpled and unorganized--

“Ruby,” Amethyst called dramatically loud, a sly grin on her lips as her friend’s face went pale with panic, a silent plea in her eyes for her to just _shut up._  “I think your girlfriends at the door!” She jeered as she let the ‘girlfriend’ in, offering a rushed hello to the girl before using the action as a quick escape.

All the worry that had evaded Ruby all morning came back with a vengeance and she stuttered in the middle of the room, mid-way through clearing off a usable space on her desk. “Hey, S-Sapphire,” fell out of her mouth.

All Ruby received in return was a low hum as Sapphire sat herself down on a clean spot on the floor, her sun dress pooling around her knees, quickly getting out her textbook and notes, not even acknowledging the mess around her. “The exam will cover chapters one through six,” She started without hesitation.  
Ruby fumbled to gather her things, making enough noise in the process to drown out Sapphire’s soft voice, but the girl continued speaking.

She must have missed something important because by the time she was settled on the floor across from Sapphire, she was asked “Which of those topics do you struggle with most?” and felt like a deer in the headlights. “Um—“ she wracked her brain for any information she had retained from lecture. “I’m pretty good at the periodic table.” She said with uncertainty.

Sapphire’s mouth drew into a thin line, and she turned her text book to page one.

Well, Ruby thought, this was off to a magnificent start.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________  
“You’re dyslexic, right?”

The question made Ruby’s blood run cold and she bolted upright, hands gripping her crossed ankles.

“How did you—Who told you!?” she demanded. Her mind started spinning panicked circles; no one here, not even Amethyst, was supposed to know. Applying with the school for disability was like signing your life over to torment, and even if no one saw you actually turning in the slip, the teacher’s comments of “just let me know if you need more time because of your _issue_ , Ruby,” would clue them in; she had learned that fast enough in middle school.

“Your handwriting.” Sapphire said simply, pointing with a manicured finger to the chicken scratch in Ruby’s notebook. “Your muscle memory associates writing with stress, and you tense up.”

Ruby slammed her notebook shut, shoving it across the floor as if it were a danger to the both of them. “Don’t tell anyone!” She tried to sound threatening, but her high pitched voice was hardly suited for it, and her throat was already starting to tighten in that all too familiar feeling. “ _Please_ , you don’t understand—“

“I do.” Sapphire said calmly. She hesitated for only a moment before raising a hand, combing it through her hair and pushing it back out of her face. “Look, Ruby.”

Ruby only sniffed, blinking hard before she decided her eyes were dry enough to raise her head. “How’s that supposed to—“ but she cut herself off. For the first time she could remember, Sapphire’s expression was soft, almost shy in the way her eyes refused to meet Ruby’s. They were mismatched, too. The right a dark cobalt and the left a silvery gray, glassy and not fully opened.

“It doesn’t work,” Sapphire said, softly even for her and if Ruby wasn’t so transfixed she would have probably not heard it. “It never has and it never will.” And with that she flattened her hair back out. Her chest rose with a deep breath before she was able to meet Ruby’s gawking stare.

This turned every idea Ruby had about this girl upside down. She was shy, not cold; She was imperfect, she was self-conscious, she was compassionate. She was only human. “…Why did you trust me?’

“It makes us even.” She said quickly, flipping through the text book to the last page they were studying. “…and you needed to know that there’s nothing wrong with you.” She shot Ruby a soft smile, “you’re not stupid, Ruby, you just can’t see.”

_________________________________________________________________________________________  
The weekend before the exam they decided to have one final cram session. Ruby had bought snacks, half of which went as a peace offering to Amethyst, who she had kicked out of the room for the final time. It was a small price to pay for the relative peace and quiet. Ruby had grown rather fond of her study partner, though she can’t say the same was true for her. Sapphire had certainly warmed up to her a bit, but she was still reserved, almost always devoid of emotion, even if Ruby had managed to coax a laugh out of her a hand full of times.

This was possibly going to be the last time they met with each other outside of class, and if prolonging their forced acquaintanceship was out of her reach, Ruby wanted to have the last time be the best, at the very least.

Sapphire’s knock at the door sent excitement racing through Ruby’s chest, quickly opening the door only for that electric buzz to turn sour in her stomach. She had assumed ‘all night cram session’ translated to ‘dorm room pajama party’ and dressed accordingly; freshly washed hair, huge campy amusement park t-shirt, mismatched socks, and her favorite gym shorts. Sapphire, on the other hand, was dressed to the nines as usual: flowy sun dress, heels, and Ruby’s personal favorite shade of lipstick on her.

None the less, she settling into her usual spot on the floor before opening her purse and offering Ruby an energy drink with a subtle smile. “Thought we’d start early.’ She said as she pulled out one for herself.

__________________________________________________________________________  
By six in the morning they were both deliriously tired. Ruby lay sprawled on the floor alongside empty soda cans and chip crumbs, while Sapphire’s head lolled off the back of her desk chair, heels long since kicked off and hair a fluffy mess behind her.

“…Hey, Ruby?’ her voice cut through the early morning campus bustle as the sun started to barely peek through the window shades.

A noncommittal grunt sounded from the floor, and Sapphire gently spun the chair to face her. “Do you remember Peridot’s party?” She asked; her voice was low and lazy sounding.

“Yeah” Ruby shrugged, “what I was conscious for, anyway.” Her eyes stayed closed the whole time, her voice soft and subdued.

Sapphire hummed, and there was a solid minute of silence that followed before she spoke again. “…Did you mean what you said to me that night?” Her eyes trained on Ruby, who very much looked like she had fallen asleep in that lull in conversation, and maybe it was for the best if she had.

Ruby’s eyes shut tighter, and Sapphire knew then that she was thinking.

Truthfully, Ruby didn’t remember saying much of anything to Sapphire that night. “Did I say something mean to you?” She rolled onto her belly, supporting her head on her hands to look back at Sapphire with tired concern. “I don’t always think before I say things.”

An understanding hum sounded in Sapphire’s throat and she closed her eyes. “I see.” That… wasn’t exactly the answer she had hoped for.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
“The professor must have miscalculated.” Sapphire said, too quickly to truly be calm as she folded the corner of the first page of their paper back and forth through the blue eighty nine circled at the top. Other than that, she was completely still, waiting in the hall for the professor to walk out so she could politely demand a relook at their grade.

Ruby, in contrast, was ecstatic. This was the best grade she had made all semester and it must have knocked her up at least one letter grade. “It’s almost an A, though, Sapphire!” She said excitedly, folding her copy and slipping it into her bag to show off to Amethyst later. “Besides, she hates me." Ruby said with a shrug. "We’re lucky to have gotten such a good score.”

“But its not!” her voice was hardly louder than the average hum of voices around them, but that kind of volume coming from Sapphire startled Ruby into silence. “I don’t make Bs.” She added, more at her normal volume but Ruby wasn’t fooled; Sapphire’s little hands were clutching their paper tight enough to wrinkle through all eighteen pages. She was angry, more so than when she had been assigned Ruby’s partner for this whole ordeal.

“Professor!” Sapphire’s voice was instantly back to normal, if not a bit pitched up, followed by the clicks of her heels on tile and “Do you have a moment?”

_________________________________________________________________________________________  
When Sapphire returned, only a couple of minutes later, she looked somewhere between horrified and ready to burst into tears. “Sh-she couldn’t even tell me what we lost points for.” It was the first time Ruby heard her trip over her words. “She just kept saying it was ‘bad’ and we were ‘lucky for that grade’” Sapphire’s tight grip had moved to her bag strap, wringing it as she spoke.

“I told you, she just doesn’t like me.” Ruby sighed, “It’ll be ok.”

“You don’t get it!” Sapphire’s voice was cracked and strained, interrupted by a loud sniff as she wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “I _have to_ make an A, I-I--“

Ruby was completely stunned. Sapphire hadn’t shown her any more emotion in almost three months than a halfhearted smile, and now she was raising her voice, crying even—a man’s voice startled Ruby into action with a passing ‘Someone’s having a meltdown, huh?’ and Ruby quickly put an arm around Sapphire’s shoulders, forcing the taller girl to duck down, thus shielding her from view, ushering her into the nearest bathroom with a snarl of ‘fuck off’ thrown over her shoulder.

Fortunately, no one else was in the bathroom, though that did present her with a difficult situation. Ruby didn’t know how to deal with crying; she was usually the one being comforted. She steered Sapphire over to one of the benches by the sinks, taking her bag from her and setting it on the seat next to her.

“D-don’t cry—“ Ruby didn’t know what to say and her voice made it sound like she was on the verge of tears herself. “uh… It’ll be ok.” She knelt down at Sapphire’s feet, smiling up at her even if it took everything she had to push back the sympathy tears. “If you just make a ninty one on the next paper, it’ll be just like you made an A on both!”

“You don’t understand,” Sapphire said, sobs muffled in her hands and face hidden by her hair. “That’s not good enough, I have to be _perfect_.” She managed, finally taking in a deep, stuttering breath.

“You are! I-I think you’re perfect!” Ruby blurted it out before she could stop herself, but her embarrassment didn’t matter now. She choked it down and continued, “You’re really smart, and pretty, and organized—“

“I have to be the best in my class,” Her voice was steadying, finally, even if her face was red and blotchy and her makeup was beyond ruined. “I have to graduate top of my class with a perfect GPA, but not before I become president of some stupid sorority I can’t even remember the name of, and—“ she stopped to wipe her nose on her cardigan. “and then my boyfriend will propose to me on stage, and I’ll say yes because of the pressure,” Sapphire’s hands had long since abandoned her face in favor if absently braiding small portions of her hair only to comb them out with her fingers moments later. “We’ll get married, and then my master’s in something smart will collect dust on a shelf as i throw it away to stay at home and raise kids I had out of obligation because I have to be _just like my sisters_ \--!”

Anger, on the other hand, Ruby knew how to handle. She grabbed the tops of Sapphire’s legs at the knee, squeezing to get her attention. “Is that what you want?” She asked, eyes locked on Sapphire’s for an answer.

The action made Sapphire jump and within seconds of Ruby’s question, tears were welling back up in her eyes. “O-of course I don’t!” Her hands balled into fists in the hem of her dress, knuckles pressed to Ruby’s finger tips. “I don’t want _an_ y of it, but I _have to._ ”

“What do you want instead?” Ruby coaxed, voice steady and gentle as she slid her hands up so they laid over Sapphire’s closed fists. Her hands were so small under Ruby’s. She could even curl her fingers around them.

“…I wanna sing” Sapphire said finally, biting her lip to keep in the last remnants of the sobs that plagued her before.

Ruby’s face lit up with a smile. “Are you any good?” she asked with a quiet laugh.

Sapphire only nodded, shutting her eyes to cut off the tears.

“Then do that.” Ruby said simply, standing up and, reluctant as she was, let go of Sapphire’s hands.

Sapphire looked up at her frantically, stammering “I-I can’t have an art degree!”

“Why’s that?” Ruby asked over her shoulder as she went to the row of sinks, grabbing a few paper towels and wetting one of them before making her way back. “Sapphire,” she started as she knelt back down, sweeping long strands of hair out of the girl’s red face so she could start gently wiping away the black streaks on her flushed cheeks. “You’re incredible.”

Sapphire gave a shy smile, wiping her other eye with a sniff.

“And If you’re even half as good to listen to as you are to look at, I know you’ll make it.”

“ _Ruby_!” Sapphire scolded before a fit of giggles over took her. “Are—are you trying to hit on me?” she said after a snort of laughter.

Ruby beamed up at her. “I don’t know, is it working?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got (and even in college still get) a lot of backlash and teasing from being dyslexic myself, so I'm not gonna lie when I say I added that in for Ruby as a way for me to vent as much as a reason for a great deal of people thinking she's stupid. I don't know if the horrible handwriting issue is common among dyslexic people or if it's a rare aquire thing in my case, though.  
> Who knew cartoons for children could help adults learn to love themselves?
> 
> Either way, enough about me. Prepare yourselves for another round of fist fights, some hardcore name calling, and a jump in the rating.


	5. Good Luck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing about falling in love is perfect, but imperfections are what makes it beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On an unfortunate note, updates will be getting slow now that schools started again. I'm an art major, so I've got a lot of outside work from class and usually it zaps my creativity before I'm able to work on this. That being said, I'm absolutely going to keep this up! I'm so incredibly happy people are enjoying it and I don't want to leave anyone hanging, even if I totally don't have this planned out from start to finish.

It felt like the whole solar system had been overcome with lethargy, slowing to a stop just for the two of them; like the world outside no longer mattered, or even existed. Everything was quiet, except for the plink of a dripping faucet. Everything was calm, except for the racing of Ruby’s heart. And everything was pleasantly warm, except for the hand cradled gently in her curled fingers. 

Sapphire’s hair was soft as stray curls tickled along the backs of Ruby’s arms, breath a warm wash over her neck, sending a suppressed shiver down Ruby’s spine.

She took a slow, deep breath, filling her lungs with the delicate scent of Sapphire’s perfume, or maybe it was her shampoo, it was impossible to tell; the girl was so, so close to her, resting peacefully. Everything in that moment was absolutely _perfect._

But perfection and Ruby never did get along.

Just as she opened her mouth to speak, so did Sapphire, simultaneously drawing in a breath before sheepishly letting it out.

“S-sorry,” Ruby said quickly, hardly above a whisper. She felt if she moved, so much as spoke a single word, this wonderful moment would slip through her fingers like the silky fall of Sapphire's hair over her shoulder. She sat stock still, hardly even breathing, and waited for the other to speak.

Sapphire shook her head, and Ruby tried to tell herself it was just that, not the girl nuzzling closer into the crook of her neck, even if that’s how it felt.

“I was just going to apologize. I kind of made a scene in the hall.” Sapphire tried to laugh it off, but her voice was still tight and strained. She tried to clear her throat.

“No, its ok!” Ruby’s hands flexed in an attempt to let off even a single watt of the nervous energy she had steadily building up inside of her. Her heart was like a jackhammer against her ribs, and every beat sent a jolt of electricity through her fingertips. “It’s a good thing to let yourself cry sometimes.” Her palms were sweaty, and she was sure Sapphire had noticed by now, but letting go of her hand sounded too close to torture to be an even trade.

“I do feel a little better.” Sapphire sniffled, and shifted, settling her head more comfortably onto Ruby’s broad shoulder. She closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth of Ruby’s skin on her damp streaked cheeks. Crying took a lot out of you, and the only thing making it difficult to rest on her comfortable perch was Ruby’s insistent fidgeting, though it didn't bother her. There was beauty in how honest Ruby was to her emotions.

Ruby swallowed, trying her best to stay still, to stay _calm._ So often opportunity slammed it's door in her face because she was too shy, too anxious, too over emotional, but not this time. She clenched her free hand, grounding her feet on the linoleum tiles and exhaled her anxieties. “I, uh,” Ruby’s voice broke through the quiet, and she stopped, swallowing down the lump that was trying to trap her words in her throat. “I-is that boyfriend of yours taking you anywhere this Saturday?” her hands twitched again, trying to clench shut before she was reminded that she was _still holding Sapphire’s hand._

A soft chime of laughter echoed in the small, tile lined space, and Ruby’s heart took a sickening dive, even if the sound had become like music to her.

Of course he was, why wouldn’t he? He probably took her out to fancy restaurants that Ruby could never dream of affording, and to artsy foreign films with subtitles that went too fast for her to read. He was probably tall, and handsome—

“I don’t have a boyfriend.” Sapphire said through her giggles. “I lied to my parents, so they'd get off my back.” She said simply, her voice still hoarse and cracked, and she sighed. “He’s a famous actor, very rich and handsome, and of course we’re waiting until marriage.” Sapphire snorted, then sniffed, quiet disgust in her voice when she said “Not my type at all.”

“O-oh! So...” Ruby had to pry her lip from between her teeth before continuing. “You’re not busy Saturday?” She tried not to sound so hopeful, looking anywhere but at Sapphire because ‘subtle’ never was a word used to describe her.

“No.” Sapphire chuckled. “Are you trying to invite me somewhere, Ruby?” She asked, her voice soft and pleasant even through the strain, and maybe Ruby imagined it, but she sounded a little hopeful, too.

“…If you wanna go, i-it’s not really fancy or anything…” There was no holding back the fidgeting anymore as Ruby’s foot started tapping against the bench leg as if it had a mind of its own. The sound filled the small space with nervous energy, only making it harder for her to spit the words out.

“Try me.” Sapphire said, the words ‘yes’ ready on her painted lips.

“It’s like this… armature kickboxing thing I do sometimes,” if sometimes was every single weekend since senior year of high school. “It’s only the qualifying rounds,” she added quickly, “s-so, you know, it’s not a big deal or anything.” Her unoccupied hand had taken up drumming on the seat, the dull click of her chewed short finger nails adding to the slowly building symphony of nervous sounds. “I’m pretty good, but I…I don’t know if it’s your kind of thing. I can get you free popcorn, though!”

Sapphire couldn’t fight the smile off her face if she tried. There was just something inexplicably charming about this girl. “Seeing as I had to deal with the aftermath of you punching the snot out of somebody, I think you owe it to me.”

Instantly Ruby’s nerves melted into a comfortable warmth that swirled and swelled in her chest. She turned her head to Sapphire, effectively burying her face in soft, curly hair. “I guess I do, huh?” her voice was positively shaking with excitement.  
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

“I think I did it!” Ruby said as she burst into their room without knocking, the door crashing into the wall with a loud bang before ricocheting shut behind her. “I think I asked Sapphire out.”

Amethyst peeked over the top of her laptop screen, it's dull blue glow the only light in the room. She didn't bothering to pause the show she was watching. It was a rerun, anyway.

“You _think_ you asked her out? And here I thought you didn’t like this girl at all.” She said, sarcasm heavy in her voice and eyebrows raised as she popped another candy into her mouth. “How’d you mess that up?”

“I didn’t! I just—“ Ruby flopped backwards onto her own bed with a content sigh, stretching out on the mattress to relieve some of the stiffness in her back. Sitting still, even if just for a few minutes, was hard.

“I asked her if she wanted to come to the qualifying match tomorrow,” Ruby tried to sound casual, but just retelling the event made her feel giddy, “and she said yes.”

This would be the first time that, with no outside help, she had asked a girl out. Even if it wasn’t explicitly marked as a date, she had her foot in the door that so often was shut and locked tight right in front of her. 

Amethyst squinted at her, “Watching you get all sweaty doesn’t really scream ‘romance’,” she shrugged, “but suit yourself.” Amethyst slouched back down onto the nest of blankets she called a bed, resituating herself to get back to her show.

“You gotta come, too!” Ruby said quickly as she flung herself back upright, looking with urgency to her roommate. The motion gave her a dizzying head rush.

“No thanks.” Amethyst said with a halfhearted dismissal wave of her hand. “I’m not being your third wheel.”

“No, Amethyst, you have to!” Ruby crossed the step’s space between their beds to sit on Amethyst’s, stealing an m&m from the bag hidden in a mass of covers before continuing her plea. “I need you to find out if she likes me at all.” She reached to take another candy. “I’m gonna win the match, and while the crowds cheering for me," she took a small handful this time, "I’m gonna sweep her off her feet. It’s gonna be perfect, just like she is.” Ruby finished with a hopelessly romantic sigh and a grabbing hand reaching for more.

“I aint doing jack if you keep swiping my snacks!” Amethyst hissed, slapping Ruby’s hand away. “How do you have this all planned out if you don’t even know if she likes you, anyway?” Amethyst frowned and closed her laptop with a heavy sigh; she was going to need full concentration to talk Ruby down from her excitement this time. “Do you even know if she’s in to girls?”

Ruby faltered in her giddy excitement, face falling for a brief moment. That definitely was a fatal flaw in this set up.

“You’re setting yourself up for heartbreak, buddy.”

“That’s where you come in, though!” Ruby jumped back to action, vigor renewed because Sapphire _was_ single, after all; A lovely, smart girl who was undeniably single in a town full of lonely college boys was never without its reasons. 

“Before the match, you find out how she feels about me,” Ruby scooted closer to Amethyst when the girl rolled her eyes. “No, listen! a-and you give me some kind of hand signal if she does—“ Ruby looked at her own hands, expecting an answer.

She hadn’t really thought this far ahead. Ruby had always been a 'play it by ear' type of person; she had gotten stuck in a loop of perfecting what she was going to say, trying to find words strong enough to tell Sapphire how breathtakingly beautiful she was. How, even with her cold demeanor, Ruby knew how warm hearted she was, how sweet, and caring--

“Like this?” Amethyst's eyes widened in mocked excitement, holding up her middle finger in front of Ruby’s face.

“Amethyst!” Ruby swatted her hand away, shooting her a heated glare. “I’m being serious for once! I--" Her hands curled into fists in the blankets, "…I really like her, ok?” 

Amethyst thought it over for a minute, glancing at Ruby before admitting defeat. “Fine.” She owed the girl a lot, more than she could probably pay back in a life time. She could go along with this for her at the very least. “But I’m making a new plan. Yours is horrible.”

Ruby’s smile was contagious, and Amethyst couldn’t resist grinning back at her.  
_________________________________________________________________

Two days ago, Sapphire would have taken one look at this place and turned on her heels. Not out of fear or distaste, but because it simply wasn’t a place for girls like her. Or, girls like she tried to make herself be.

She had expected something a little…nicer when Ruby had said ‘armature kickboxing’. Her mind hadn't drawn the image of a gravel path leading through an open chicken wire fence with a padlock that Sapphire couldn’t help but notice was cut, not unlocked, into one of Beach City’s many cargo bays. The only light around was from four bright construction lamps that were concentrated too harshly on a main stage, which looked like it was just a bunch of wooden pallets pushed together, roped off by budgie cord. Calling it shady was generous.

As she made her way up the steps of the rusty bleachers the metal creaked and shifted under her slight weight with every step. She was thankful for picking today to be the first in months to opt for flats instead of heels.

Amethyst plopped down next to her shortly after, offering a quick greeting and a bag of popcorn as Sapphire’s eyes adjusted , bringing a looming shadowy figure into view, loitering by the half hazard stage.

Sapphire remembered that shape, even if she couldn’t make out the details in the darkness. “…Is she going to fight Ruby?” she asked, pointing a wary finger to the girl just a few yards away. She wasn’t afraid of her, but afraid of what she could do. And if those two were really to go up against each other, Sapphire had completely misjudged the type of gig this was. She’d come to see a sport, support her friend, not to see a real life fight club, though with the atmosphere this place had it wouldn’t have surprised her.

“Jasper?” Amethyst said around her mouthful of food, “Nah, she’s in a different division.” She eyed Sapphire, who was still locked onto the hulking figure, though gave no emotional cues. “You got some beef with her, too?”

Sapphire pursed her lips, debating for a moment, but Amethyst seemed like someone who would get a kick out of the information by the way she eagerly waited for Sapphire’s reply. “I bit her.”

A spluttering cough sounded from beside her, followed by the loud thumping of a hand against Amethyst’s chest before the girl used the rest of her breath on a bark of laughter. ” _You bit Jasper?"_  Amethyst asked, looking Sapphire up and down. “I misjudged you,” she clapped her on the back, scooting her a few inches closer to the edge of the dirty bleacher bench with the force. “I’d say you’re stupid, but Ruby’s already told me _loads_ about how smart you are.”

“Be careful around her, though,” Amethyst added in all seriousness. “She can hold a grudge like you wouldn’t believe.”  
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

With one final strike, Ruby’s opponent was down, hitting the wooden pallets with a clap that made Sapphire wince, but not enough to make her turn away.

Ruby had to have been being modest when she said she was ‘pretty good’ because it was a perfect match. She had dodged every fist and kick thrown her way like it was second nature, countering with her own attack perfectly, and if she wasn’t covered in sweat, Sapphire would have called the whole thing elegant.

Ruby grinned into the blindingly bright lights, tightening the ratty fabric tied around her forehead with a pull to the tails in the back before raising her hands in victory as her opponent tapped out. The match had hardly lasted five minutes.

Instantly Sapphire was on her feet, even if a bit wobbly on the rickety contraption, clapping and cheering for Ruby’s triumph with Amethyst by her side.

“Hey,” Amethyst’s voice cut over the small crowd as it died down, but Sapphire didn’t turn her gaze away from the blinding stage lights. “…You know she kinda has a thing for you, right?” She gave Sapphire a tentative look. “She’s pretty obvious about it.”

Sapphire came to a slow pause, hands pressed together midway through her applause, the slightest raise in her eyebrows before the corners of her mouth twitched up into a hint of a smile. “…I thought so.” She mumbled to herself, eyes fixed on the stage.

“Just thought I’d warn ya,” Amethyst said with a shrug, turning back to the stage herself.  
___________________________________________________________

Ruby jumped over the bungie cord barrier with ease before squinting around in the darkness, looking for familiar faces. The lights were still messing with her eyes, and the thrill of the fight still messing with her confidence; she needed to find Sapphire before she lost her edge.

“Ruby!” The soft voice was like a beacon in the darkness, and Ruby spun around, nearly sprinting to the bleachers to offer Sapphire her hand, helping her down the wobbly steps.

“How’d I do?” Ruby asked excitedly, even if the question was almost irrelevant. She won, so obviously she did pretty well. “That wasn’t my best time, but—“

Sapphire hopped off the final step, keeping hold of Ruby’s hand even after she was on sturdy, solid ground. “You’re incredible!” She smiled at Ruby, and without her heels she didn’t need to look down to do it.

Ruby's cheeks were starting to hurt, but she couldn't ease the grin on her face. “Oh, I-I’m just really good at hitting things,” Ruby tried to play modest, but she was positively beaming at Sapphire. Before she knew it, both her hands had been captured in Sapphire’s small ones. It was that jolt of cool skin over her sore and heated hands that reminded her of the motivation behind tonight's fight. It was more than easy for her to get lost looking at Sapphire. 

Ruby glanced over to Amethyst, who had lingered back in the shadows of the bleachers. After a moment of cold panic in which her wingman did nothing, Amethyst shrugged, giving Ruby a weak thumbs up, before changing her mind. She grinned, holding up a fist and flipped Ruby off with vehemence.

Ruby couldn’t help but laugh, ducking her head down for a moment to hide her giddy grin. It was the only way to relieve some of the excitement that was trying to overflow.

She won the match, she won the girl; maybe fate wasn't as cruel as she had first thought. “Sapphire, I—“

“Will you walk me home?” Sapphire cut in quickly, giving Ruby’s hand a tug in the direction of the gates, paying her words no attention. “I don’t live very far.”

The whole thing caught Ruby off guard and it took her a moment to wind down her excitement enough to change gears. “…Y-yeah, Ok,” She agreed automatically on an inhale of cool night air that filled her lungs, and turned her confidence and excitement into bitterly cold insecurity.

She chanced a quick glance over at Amethyst, who seemed only a little less taken aback than she was. Her friend gave her another timid thumbs up, but her expression wasn’t so confidant.

Ruby suddenly felt the pricks of anxiety sinking its claws into the back of her exposed neck, making her feel sick and weak, but she wasn’t going to let this go. She wasn't going to let _Sapphire_ go. “Yeah, I’d love to walk you home.” She agreed again, voice more firm.

With the first step forward she grounded herself, with the second she steeled her nerves, and with the third she opened her mouth to speak. “I’m really glad you came, Sapphire.” She would tell her, twinkling stars above them be damned if she didn’t, but not now. Not now.

______________________________________________________________________

Sapphire’s idea of far and Ruby’s were clearly very different. This upcoming street corner would mark eight blocks so far, but Ruby couldn’t care less. Each block they passed was another spent together, another minute she got to hold Sapphire’s hand, and another streetlamp that would illuminate her under its flickering yellow light so Ruby could stare in disbelief, because it had to mean _something_ that Sapphire had kept their hands clasped together this entire time, right?  She held onto hope as tightly as their fingers woven together.  

“I can feel you staring.”

The calm words started Ruby out of her sappy day dreams, drawing a stuttered “S-Sorry.” They were the first words spoken their entire walk, but Ruby didn’t mean them. “You’re just—“

“’Pretty under all that hair?’” Sapphire turned over her shoulder, but Ruby couldn’t see her expression in the dim light. “…That’s what you said to me after Peridot’s party.” She added quietly, and faced forward again, her hair catching a night breeze in the motion.

It felt like Ruby’s chest was filling with some horrible mixture of embarrassment and dread, constricting her lungs and making it hard to breathe. “I said that out loud?” Ruby fretted, skipping a step to walk even with Sapphire; the girl was all long, lean legs and awfully fast next to Ruby’s stocky strength.

“I mean, it _is_ true,” Ruby added with an unsure smile cast at Sapphire, who seemed to pay her no mind. Her nerves shook her voice, making it even more girlishly high than usual. If she had said that, what other supposed thoughts had made their way into the hearing world that night? Surely, though, Sapphire had heard that she was beautiful a hundred times over, so if that was the only thing to escape, maybe she thought nothing more of it.

A halfhearted puff of a laugh sounded from the girl beside her and Ruby visibly relaxed, expression softening. At the very least, she hadn’t disgusted Sapphire with her little comment.

“You’re very sweet, Ruby.” The words were plain and dry, but that didn’t stop them from sending a spark, igniting Ruby's confidence.  

“You should tie your hair back sometimes,” She suggested, voice light with that small bit of renewed hope Sapphire’s words had given her. Maybe Ruby wouldn’t end up having to wait quite as long as she expected. They were alone now; it was an even better plan.

She reached for Sapphire as they walked in stride, brushing her hair over the soft slope of her shoulder. It felt wonderful through Ruby's fingers, like spun silk. “It’s a shame you don’t,” She said, fighting for control over her lips as her teeth insisted on that nervous habit of biting them. “You really are beautiful, Sapphire...” Ruby’s shaky finger tips followed up the soft curve of her cheek, all the way up to push her bangs back out of her face.

But Sapphire flinched at the contact, letting go of Ruby’s hand in her little jump and taking a half staggered step forward, separating them quickly.

“I-I-I’m sorry,” Ruby grimaced, both hands retracting close to her body as if she had been burned by the fleeting contact. “I forgot you can’t really see on this side…”

God, she hoped they were nearing Sapphire’s place. This night had gone from good to bad, then ok to worse, and the longer she stuck around, the deeper a hole she seemed to dig herself into. “I didn’t mean to scare you, Sapphire...“

“No. No, It’s ok.” Sapphire’s words came level despite the tremor in her hands as she put her hair back in place.  There was silence thereafter, and Sapphire’s hand hung at her side, no intention or twitch to grab for Ruby's again.

Ruby dared not reach out.

 _____________________________________________________________________________________

 “I’m just at the end here,” Sapphire said softly, breaking the icy quiet, and pointing down the street to a small complex. “Top floor,”  

“Oh, good!” Ruby said with relief, far too quickly, and promptly shut her mouth. She felt like screaming at herself, like sinking down to the curbside and yelling into her hands until she felt better, if that would ever happen. 

To her surprise, however, Sapphire had no comment on the seemingly rude excitement, no change in her expression, either, only a comment of “I’m worried, though, about tying my hair back.” And it took Ruby a full minute to back peddle and remember they were ever even talking about that.

“What if I look as silly as you do?” Sapphire finished with a teasing smile over her shoulder, giving the red fabric tied about Ruby’s forehead a tug before taking the on first stair step.  

Ruby’s mind struggled to change gears yet again. “H-hey!” she called after her, following on Sapphire’s heels, voice bright again. These quick shifts from guilt to thrill were going to give her emotional whiplash.

 “I’ll have you know this is good luck,” Ruby stated proudly, looping her finger in her makeshift headband. “And it keeps my hair out of the way, too.”

“Oh?” Sapphire’s voice took on a mocking inquisition as they passed the second floor landing. “That looks awfully similar to the color of a dress I had a once.” and Ruby could _feel_ the accusation in Sapphire’s voice.

She gave a nervous tug to tighten the knot in the back. “W-well,” She started to explain herself before she even had a good reason thought up. “I was pretty lucky to get away with only a few bumps and bruises that night, a-and I got to meet you officially,”

“True.” Sapphire agreed, stopping at the first door at the top of the stairs. She started rummaging in her purse for her keys as Ruby struggled to state her case.

“I mean, i-it’s _gotta be_ lucky, right? I won the match…”

She honestly hadn’t given it much thought at the time; she needed something to tie her hair with, and Amethyst had absolutely trashed their room with only a little bit of Ruby’s help, leaving her things buried or otherwise unfindable under the mess. Red was her favorite color, anyway--

The lock clicked open and Sapphire only hummed in that monotone, almost flat sounding way of hers before slipping past her door with a “wait here.”

Ruby stood still for all of a second before she could no longer stand it. She roughly tugged off the sad excuse for a good luck charm, pulling some of her hair that had been caught in the knot in the process, but it didn’t matter.

“This is just _great_ ,” She grumbled to herself, balling up the offending fabric and stuffing it into her pants pocket.  She rocked back onto her heels, trying to look relaxed and casual and calm: everything she wasn’t at that moment. But she was only able to keep that up for so long.

She leaned to the side, attempting to take a nosey peek into Sapphire’s apartment through the sliver of light peeking through the half closed door, but all she got was a start as the girl reappeared, hands clasped behind her back and out of sight.

 Ruby straightened up quickly, shoving both hands back into her pockets, and looked dead ahead at a blank brick wall. _Casual_ she thought to herself, hands flexing as she tried to keep her visual discomfort to a minimum. If she acted like it wasn’t strange, maybe Sapphire would think it wasn’t, too.

 “I-I didn’t mean to keep it,” She said around the harsh bite she had to her lower lip. “I just haven’t had time to throw it out. Haven’t had time to throw anything out, actually. Th-there’s garbage everywhere—“

“I don’t think you’re weird.” Sapphire offered without prompt, forced herself into Ruby’s field of vision, even if the girl ducked her head to avoid eye contact.

“Don’t lie to me.” Ruby muttered, “I don’t even know what I was thinking.” Her voice was getting quieter, less clear as she disintegrated from muttering, to mumbling, to hardly moving her lips at all “I blew it. I ruined everything—“

“Here,” Sapphire said softly.

The next thing Ruby knew were cool hands on the nape of her neck, the soft slide of smooth fabric over her unruly hair, and the breezy, sweet scent of Sapphire’s perfume as the girl stepped closer to her, almost toe to toe before pushing up onto the balls of her feet.

Ruby’s head shot up, nearly knocking her forehead against Sapphire’s jaw with the motion. “What are you—“

“Hold still.” And Ruby froze like her life depended on it.

Sapphire’s nimble fingers pulled the fabric snug around her head, then started to tie. “Sorry if I pull your hair.”

Ruby made to shake her head to dismiss the apology, but caught herself. Instead, she straightened up, took in a deep inhale and held it. The last thing she wanted was to be breathing down Sapphire’s neck, quite literally, as the girl was leaning close to Ruby, up on the tips of her toes to secure what must be a bow, judging by the good minute she was taking on it.

And Ruby tried not to look, she tried as hard as she tried not to breathe, but both actions were inevitable; the neckline of Sapphire’s dress scooped down, framing her lovely neck and elegant collar bones and usually nothing more, but proximity and sloping angles gave view to a little _more than just that_ —

“There,” The sound of her voice startled Ruby like a car alarm in the distance and she flinched, shutting her eyes tight and refusing to reopen them until Sapphire spoke again.

“This’ll suit you better.” She said with a gentle giggle, giving the bow on the side a perfecting tug before settling back down flat onto her feet.

Ruby finally peeked her eyes open, raising a hand to run along the girly bow Sapphire had tied. “This is yours, though,” she tried to argue, but Sapphire’s face was already set into that pouty frown that she had come to know well enough to understand that this battle already had a victor.  She really couldn’t accept this, though; it felt like real silk.

“So was that ratty chunk of my skirt.” Sapphire clipped, voice firm, before her expression was relaxed. “You look better in red than I do, anyway.”

“I don’t know, that dress was really nice on you,” Ruby smiled and her cheeks tingled with a dusting of color she hoped the dim stairwell light above them hid in its flickering light. “…Thank you.” Ruby said finally, fingers twirling the tails of the bow, wrapping the soft fabric around her finger tightly

“Ah, you’ve skewed it, Ruby.” Sapphire chided and closed the distance between them again, untangling Ruby’s hands from the bow before fluffing or straightening it; whatever she was doing, Ruby didn’t care.

All she cared about was Sapphire; the glossy sheen of lipstick on her plump lips, the hint of deep, galaxy blue that peeked through her bangs, her cute little nose, and picture perfect rosy cheeks, and her hands in Ruby’s hair that felt surprisingly nice—

“Sapphire, I-I gotta tell you something. “

Sapphire’s fingers unwove from Ruby’s hair, sliding in a cool streak down her warm cheek, coming to rest against the sharp line of her jaw as Sapphire settled back onto her feet once again, casting her unnervingly blank stare on Ruby.

Ruby’s lips parted, but no words made it out, and she was quickly reminded why she so rarely looked Sapphire dead on; distracting was too soft a word, the girl was closer to mesmerizing. "I..."

Sapphire was already so close, then even closer, and those soft fingers tipped her head up just an inch before something somehow so much softer than those dainty hands pressed against her lips.

Everything was misaligned. Their noses bumped together awkwardly as Sapphire pulled them close, her lips hardly brushing against the corner of Ruby’s, and even if it was only for a second before Sapphire draw back, everything was perfect.

Ruby only stared back at her, star struck in the hallway light, the cool, sticky feeling of Sapphire’s lip gloss smeared off center on her own lips the only thing she could comprehend.

 Sapphire looked back at her, an expression on her face Ruby had only seen once before: uncertainty. “I’m sorry,” her voice came as a whisper, unsure and shaky and she took a step back. “Should I have not…?”

Then all the information came rushing to Ruby at once. “Can I—“ Ruby lurched forward, catching Sapphire’s hands and holding both in hers tightly, maybe a little too tightly even, in her excitement. “C-can I kiss you again?” The words came in an urgent whisper, and Ruby's hands shook. 

Sapphire was still, her expression unchanged as color rushed to her cheeks. "It's embarrassing when you ask, Ruby." She mumbled, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth; how was it that when Sapphire did it, it was so charming? "...But yes, you may."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, Ruby, you'll get to do more than just look soon enough. 
> 
> Sapphire's fake boyfriend is totally Jamie, just if he was actually a successful actor. 
> 
> I don't know if maybe its just a deep south thing, but at my school if you just know the right people, you can find all kinds of 'fight clubs' around campus on the weekends, all just as charming as the one Ruby went to. They can be kind of neat, though! From my experience they range from harmless kiddy pool spaghetti wrestling to fairly serious, and dangerous, competitions. 
> 
> I was toying with the idea of Sapphire pushing her way into the derby scene after becoming a regular at Ruby's matches because the crowds tend to cross over, but i would honestly have to be forcing it in to happen, so I'll leave you with the image of Sapphy in those tight little colored shorts and bruised up thighs.
> 
> I know what I said would come in this chapter totally didn't happen, but I rearranged some parts, hopefully for the better. For real though, next time the ratings gonna jump. Promise.


	6. Shut out

To the occasional passing car, their scene must have seemed typical, and cliché, like a queer reenactment of any classic love story, but to Ruby it was anything but.

Her headstrong romantic advances were always the same: a poorly put-together plan, made of what sounded charming and foolproof in her head, but in actuality was a carefully calculated formula for heartbreak and a one-night, single-sided whirlwind romance. There never was a moment of careful hesitation, but with Sapphire, there was. Ruby's hands would never behave themselves, but this time they did. She would always be the only instigator, but oh, did Sapphire reciprocate. She would always find herself lost in the fine print and tangled in the strings attached, but with Sapphire, there were none. 

Instead, Ruby found herself lost in the timid kiss they shared, and tangled in Sapphire’s hair, hands sliding up the girl’s back before disappearing into windblown curls. A gentle tug forward, and she was pulling them together in a kiss that lingered, burning against her lips even after they broke apart.

They stayed close, Sapphire’s forehead pressed to Ruby’s in the eerie quiet. It was a shame, really. Sapphire surely looked beautiful, with the little hint of a blush Ruby’s eyes caught high on her cheeks, and a smile she knew was there only because of the warm breaths of shaky laughter shared between them.

“Am I that bad?” Ruby joked with a voice that was anything but steady.

 Sapphire answered with a slow shake of her head that rubbed their foreheads together, parting her bangs and revealing glimpses of her face between the gaps.

“Not at all,” she said, and even if her words were far steadier than Ruby’s, any tremor in Sapphire’s voice held so much more meaning. Her hands, too, were unsteady, tracing up the warm, toned curves of Ruby’s arms only to fall limp around her sturdy shoulders. “I just never thought this would be me, you know?” Her voice was a shaky whisper, but the dark blue in her eyes held no uncertainty, only flushed-face excitement. 

 “Don’t worry,” Ruby murmured back. Her fingers found their way out of maze of Sapphire’s hair, running down the elegant curve of her neck before smoothing down her back, coming to rest at the curve of her waist with a squeeze. “You’re not the first ‘ _straight girl’_ I’ve kissed.” Ruby leaned in for another kiss, though it wasn’t the smooth, confident action she hoped it would be. With the grin she couldn’t seem to bite back, every delicate bump together came with a quick readjustment and a quiet giggle. Closing her eyes helped, but with Sapphire wrapped around her, the odd sticky feeling of smeared lip gloss on her usually bare lips, and the curves of the girl's body under her hands, Ruby found it impossible not to smile. Honestly, she hadn’t thought that this could ever be _them._

“Oh, no, I’m not straight,” Sapphire said pointedly, and Ruby drew away, leaning back as far as the she could without breaking free of Sapphire’s grasp, “I never said I was.” Sapphire chuckled at Ruby’s expression, which was the perfect example of perplexed.

“You never said much of anything about yourself,” Ruby replied, hushed, and her fingers gripped into the fabric of Sapphire’s top.  The hall light a few doors down buzzed, then flickered out.

“I never _thought_ I was,” Sapphire continued, prompted by Ruby’s puzzled look. “I just…hoped I would never find someone I actually liked.” Their eyes met for a second, but the change of expression on Ruby’s face scared Sapphire’s gaze down, taking instead to studying the sharp angles of her jaw. Only now did she notice that their clumsy exchange had painted her face, too.  “I just wanted to ignore it.” Sapphire took one hand back, anchoring the other with chilled fingers around the back of Ruby’s neck, and gently thumbed at the smear of wine red on Ruby’s cheek.

The jump was subtle when Ruby caught hold of her hand, but nearly everything about Sapphire was subtle.  Ruby’s fingers stroked along the tops of hers, curling tightly around them before guiding their hands into a soft press of her lips against the back of Sapphire’s palm.

“That’s horrible, Sapphire.” She muttered into the smooth skin.

“I know.” She made to draw her hand back, expecting to struggle in the tight hold Ruby had around her wrists, but the grip was loosened the instant Sapphire pulled away.  “I’m not exactly a good person.”

“No, I mean it’s horrible that you would do that to yourself.” Ruby gave a delicate kiss to Sapphire’s cheek, then another just below it. “Honestly, I think you’re pretty great,” was pressed along with a grin into the girl’s warming cheek, and a flurry of rushed, sloppy kisses were scatted down to her jaw, following the line of her neck as little giggles vibrated in her throat, tickling against Ruby’s lips.

“Ruby!” Sapphire’s voice chimed, inflected with muffled laugher, and Ruby couldn’t help herself. She kissed her way up the other side of Sapphire’s neck, burying her nose in the clean, sweet scent of the girl’s hair. Her hands slid around to Sapphire’s back, running with smooth pressure up her spine in a way that made her back bow under Ruby’s touch, arching their bodies against each other. She must not have disliked the tickling feeling of Ruby’s lips on her neck, because Sapphire tipped her head back, knocking gently against the cold bite of the bricks to offer more.

With every press of Ruby’s lips, the touch lingered, growing stronger, warmer, and bolder until Ruby found herself nipping at the arch of an exposed collarbone. Just the sound of her breathing, the unsteady rise and fall of her chest that made the first few buttons of her top strain, and the hammering of her pulse under Ruby’s lips were more than enough to drown out the ambient noises of the quiet city street, but that beautiful gasp was almost deafening. Another, testing graze of teeth over the soft skin of Sapphire’s neck and the girl seemed to melt between the spaces of Ruby’s fingers.

“ _Ruby.”_ Her name fell from Sapphire’s lips, but the tune was nothing like before. Sapphire’s voice was lower, but softer, and the call very nearly brought Ruby to her knees.

She never was fond of her name. Rubies were high-class, prized for their beauty and elegance, and even if she knew her mother meant well by giving her the name, it followed her like a disappointed reminder of all the feminine beauty she lacked. Not to mention that the word, coupled with her less than outstanding test scores, set her up perfectly for being called ‘dumb as a rock.’

But oh, how her name sounded dripping from Sapphire’s lips! She would wear it like a badge of honor if only it were always spoken like _that_.

              Her hands still shook as they smoothed over the waistband of Sapphire’s skirt, but with confident excitement, no longer diluted with a mixture of anxiety and hesitation. Every kiss crept lower than the last, and she was very quickly running out of exposed skin.

              Sapphire’s back arched a fraction further in what Ruby only assumed was an unspoken plea, and who was she to deny this girl so lovingly bending under her touch? In their excited frenzy Ruby’s fingers fumbled with the first button on Sapphire’s top, which had been closed much too high up in the first place, and was simply too small for anyone with reasonable sized hands to undo in a timely manner.

It felt like minutes – embarrassingly long, drawn-out ones – with the self-depreciating nag at the back of her mind reminding her that just a moment before she had been none-too-subtly boasting about her skills in this field. In her defense, there wasn’t exactly a lot of extra fabric to help her out.

The second the tiny button popped free, Ruby’s fingers were struggling with the next, scattering heated kisses on the skin exposed. It felt like so little for the amount of effort she had to put forth to get it, but with the second button undone, it was starting to become _very_ worth it. A hint of scalloped lace poked past the open edges of Sapphire’s top, cupped close to a curve of soft, dark skin that begged Ruby to touch.  

A metallic click sounded, startling Ruby’s jittery fingers away from the third button.

“Finally,” Sapphire sighed, grinning as she bumped her apartment door open with her foot, “Will you come in?” It was possibly the most obvious question Ruby had even been asked, and in her awe-stricken gape up at the girl, the only answer that came to her was a sheepish step out of the doorway and a “Ladies first.”

She watched as Sapphire’s smile widened, only to be hidden behind a hand as she stepped over the threshold.

              A loud, high-pitched autotune blared from Ruby’s pocket, accompanied by a strong vibrating that made her yelp. She doubled over and shoved both fumbling hands into her pockets, swearing under her breath – why had she let Amethyst talk her into setting her ringtone to this awful, overplayed pop song (even if it was extremely catchy, and she knew all the words)?

              The screen blinded her in electronic blue light once fished from her pocket, and she hit ‘answer’ as soon as she could. Anything to shut off that embarrassing ringtone. She held the phone to her ear with hands shaking in irritation, yelling a hushed, “Wh-What do you want?” with her hand cupped between her mouth and Sapphire, as if her voice didn’t carry in the brick hallway.

              “Where even are you?” came loudly out of the bottom speaker, giving Ruby’s heart another horrible rush of adrenaline that spread through her veins in a cold panic. Of course she answered it on speakerphone; things were going great, so _something_ had to come along and snatch it away from her. “It’s been like an hour.” Ruby’s stubby fingers fumbled with the touch screen, nearly dropping the thing in her nervous haste. “ _Please_ tell me you at least got in her panties, because otherwise I’ve been waiting here—“

‘End call’ could only evade her for so long.

              They both stood stock still, the whistle of a gust of wind blowing through the narrow hall the only sound other than Ruby’s heavy, panicked breathing. 

              “Oh, so is _that_ why you walked me home?” Sapphire crossed her arms over her chest, but made a point of giving Ruby a smile; the girl looked like she was ready to throw her phone off the railing (or herself, really).

              Ruby paled in the florescent hall lights, both hands curling into fists tight enough to dig the dull tips of her nails into the palm of one and draw a popping sound from the one gripping her phone. It didn’t seem like enough pressure to break it, but it wouldn’t have been the first phone she had broken. 

“God, no, please don’t listen to Amethyst, I would never—“ She tightened her fists, pressing the harsh bite of her nails more forcibly into her hand; anything to distract from the choking feeling rising in her throat that threatened to cut off her explanation. 

“It is getting late though,” Sapphire admitted, ignoring Ruby’s rambling, eyes flicking out to the nearly starless sky.  “You should be getting back,” she continued sweetly, a finger twisting in her curls. “Rest up, so we can celebrate your big win after class.”

              The pain in Ruby’s palm lessened, relaxing under the lack of angry words she had expected.

 “You… still want to see me?” 

 “Very much,” Sapphire nodded, slipping another step further into the doorway, reaching to close it, but pausing with her hand on the doorknob, “…and I hope you don’t _really_ mean that you’d _never_.”

              With that, the door swung shut, clapping on the wooden frame loud enough to make Ruby wince. 

               She wasn’t even allowed to process Sapphire’s last words; her stunned silence was interrupted by a strong buzz from her right hand. She looked at the phone out of habit, unlocking the screen before anger for the little gadget forced her to grit her teeth.

              ‘Whatever you’re doing, hurry up,’ shone on the bright screen, followed by another jolt of buzzing and, ‘A storm's supposed to move in tonight.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised 10,000 words but if you haven't noticed yet, I lie. A lot.  
> With some help it became clear that this was a good place to split Ruby's little quest of sorts in half so i can get SOMETHING out while working with the rest, which will hopefully come soon because its already partially done.
> 
> also a big huge thank you to Rhinocio for beta-ing this! My spelling is at like a 5th grade level, so its hard work that I greatly appreciate!


	7. Kinesthetic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhin (thank you again for beta-ing you are a life saver) suggested I name this chapter "(Mg,Fe2+)2(Mg,Fe2+)5Si8O22(OH)2" which is the chemical compound cummingtonite.  
> What a stellar friend I have made.

It was no secret that Sapphire was beautiful – possibly one of the prettiest girls in Beach City altogether. She was elegant in the summer in flirty circle skirts with conservative hemlines (that Ruby never could figure out if were classy or just disappointing), wedge heels, and clips and bows in her hair to keep it off her neck, but not out of her face. In the fall, Sapphire was ethereal. All long, billowy dresses, and comfy, open knit sweaters over frilled button-ups; hats that flopped and framed her pretty face, and tights that ran smooth along the curves of her legs, tempting Ruby’s hands to do the same. But winter had to be Ruby’s favorite look for Sapphire. She was positively adorable. Bundled up in turtle necks and sweaters, wool skirts with fleece-lined leggings, mittens, and a borrowed scarf because she hadn’t expected it to be quite so chilly (or, at least, that was the excuse she gave).

 Even if the garment covered Sapphire’s pretty, chill-pinkened cheeks, Ruby couldn’t stand to let the bitter wind chap those lips. Ruby was warm by nature and didn’t really need her scarf anyway.

The walk to Ruby’s dorm had been treacherous. Sapphire clung to Ruby for warmth, and Ruby to Sapphire for support over icy patches; it was out of necessity, clearly, that they stayed with arms linked, pressed shoulder to shoulder and almost stepping on each other’s toes until they were safely in the relative warmth of Ruby’s tiny shared room.

“Man, why couldn’t this storm hit _next_ week?” Ruby groaned, kicking off her sleet-sodden shoes in the doorway. Sapphire did the same, only not directly in the entrance. “I’d love it if finals were canceled.”   

“They would just be moved online,” Sapphire shot back, and if it were anyone but Ruby, one probably wouldn’t have caught the irritation low in her soft voice and simply took her answer for her usual blunt way of speaking.

She was learning to read Sapphire’s unconventional emotional cues, slowly but surely.  The half-step drop in the pitch of her voice wasn’t exactly the kind of thing that made Ruby’s heart flutter, however – not like the rise in volume when she got flustered at one of Ruby’s sappy compliments, or the way she would uncross her ankles when it was just the two of them, lean her elbows on the table, and ruin her usually perfect posture to give Ruby a smile, which for Sapphire had hardly anything to do with her lips, but everything to do with her eyes.

But before Ruby could ask, before she could even finish wracking her brain in a split second of panic, wondering what she could have possibly done between their celebratory late lunch together and the hurried and mostly silent arctic expedition across campus to her dorm, Sapphire laid her fears to rest.

“Sorry,” she started with a tooth-chattering sigh, reluctantly shrugging off her heavy overcoat that, despite all the layers underneath, still managed to cinch in at her narrow waist, exaggerating her curves beautifully – nothing like Ruby’s winter wear, which merely made her look even boxer than she naturally was. “I just really hate the cold.’’ Sapphire kept her mittens on, and wrapped her arms around herself for warmth, even though they were damp from the slushy hail of ice that had been falling for three days straight now.

 ‘’Oh.’’ The words melted away Ruby’s tension faster than the sleet had melted in her shoes, making her socks sopping wet and cold enough to steal feeling from her toes. “I got a little worried there for a minute,’’ she admitted, peeling off her cold socks and tossing them somewhere unseen; they made a wet smack as they hit the floor, and Ruby rubbed her feet dry on the carpet.

“We can study in my bed, if you want,” she offered begrudgingly. Sapphire had insisted they turn this celebratory get together into a study date after Ruby offhandedly mentioned that she hadn’t so much as looked at her textbooks in the past week. She suspected it had been Sapphire’s plan all along, because she _just so happened_ to have her textbooks and notes with her.

 Realization hit her as hard as her back hit the creaky mattress that her comment might have sounded a bit presumptuous.

“I mean, under the blankets, you know.’’ Certainly, it was a poor choice of words to offer someone like Sapphire, who seemed so pure of heart, mind, and, from the pretty little cross Ruby had very occasionally seen worn around her neck, body as well. (Though, after their interactions the other night, certainly less so than Ruby had originally pegged her to be.) “I-I’m like a space heater, so I’ll warm you up real fast is what I’m trying to say…’’

The beautiful sound of Sapphire’s quiet chuckle was thankfully a sound she craved enough to quiet herself to listen to; God knew what she would end up saying if left to her own devices, though she was sure she would have meant every word of it.

“Are you familiar with the saying ‘quit while you’re ahead’, Ruby?” Sapphire snickered, but set her bag at the foot of Ruby’s bed anyway, plucking off her mittens. Her fingers definitely looked cold, with pinkened tips and chapped knuckles that Ruby knew she could remedy in seconds. “But your offer sounds nice.” The bed groaned as Sapphire crawled on hands and knees to where Ruby lay spread in a pile of pillows, none with matching cases.

“Yeah, my mom used to say that a lot,” Ruby mumbled as she moved to make way for Sapphire, the bed bowing and creaking with their combined weight. Clearly, her outrageous tuition was not going to upkeep on the dorms.  She lifted up the blankets only once Sapphire had begun to wiggle her way under them herself; the last thing she wanted to seem now was as overly eager as she really was. The thought of sharing her bed with a pretty girl – with _Sapphire –_ even so innocently, was enough to make her feel stiflingly hot despite the flurry outside her window. It didn’t help, either, that all her mind wanted to do was put the soft gasp of her name Sapphire had given her on repeat.

They were as far apart as two individuals could be in a twin sized bed, with Ruby’s boxy hips pressed close to the feminine curve of Sapphire’s, her hand resting with anxious fingers atop her own thigh because that was the only appropriate place for it to be. Their legs brushed together under the comforter, and Ruby tried to compact herself into the corner even further. 

              “We’ll start with memorization drills, then move on to vocabulary,” Sapphire stated, voice dripping with amused sweetness as Ruby shifted next to her, muttering a quiet apology as the movement knocked their knees together.

Sapphire had a knack for reading people; it was why she had picked Psychology as her major in the first place. Ruby was more than an open book; she was like a novel well-read, that fell open in your hands to your favorite passage, with dog-eared pages, underlined paragraphs, and notes scribbled in the margins.

“Relax, Ruby,” she coaxed, waiting until the girl drew in a visibly deep breath to begin: “What’s chromium’s atomic number?”

              “Twenty four!” Ruby blurted, taking hold of her shaky nerves and converting them into energy. Yelling was one of the few ways she knew to get hold of herself.  

              “Iron?” Sapphire continued on the same breath, ever unfazed by Ruby’s unsteady speaking volume.

              “Twenty six.”

              “Their respective classifications?” 

              “Both are transition metals.”

              “And what are their symbols?”

              “Cr and…” Ruby glanced to Sapphire, searching for any kind of hint, but found only a cold, expectant expression. “Fe?”

Sapphire shut the textbook with a heavy thump, pushing it away from herself in favor of burying herself up to her neck in Ruby’s old blankets. Her knees pulled up to her chest, creating a tent to trap in their body heat.

“You have learned everything there is to know. I have nothing more to teach you,” she said, with a bland voice that only Ruby could read the humor in.

              “Oh, don’t be an ass, Sapph,” Ruby jokingly gave her a nudge (but gently; it was hardly a brush of their shoulders that she never righted herself from. The girl seemed so delicate, and Ruby was anything but).

              “Seriously, though,” Sapphire chuckled as she propped the book open, carefully balancing it on her knees so her hands could stay in the warm little cave she had carved for herself, “You’ve really improved.” The movement had adverse effects, however, and let in a draft chilled enough to make Ruby shudder and Sapphire’s fingers quickly take cover under her warm palm. 

              “I better have with how hard you’ve been working me,” Ruby grumbled through her smile; Sapphire’s fingers filled the spaces between hers _perfectly._

              “I guess I have been over working you just a bit,” Sapphire gave Ruby’s hand a squeeze and another set of icy fingers curled around it. “And I know today was supposed to be a celebration.” Sapphire giggled at Ruby’s pouty “Yeah” in reply.

“We’ll just do one chapter. Do you want some kind of incentive to push you through it?” The words were sly and teasing, but it wasn’t the silky drawl of Sapphire’s voice that made Ruby’s mouth go dry. It was an innocent search for warmth, Ruby knew that, but it didn’t change the fact that her hand was being drawn up Sapphire’s leg, running over the soft knit of her tights and under the hem of her skirt, even if only by an inch or so, before being smothered between the unbearable softness of Sapphire’s thighs.

“L-like what?” her voice was cracked and breathy, and the inhale she took to try to reason with her nerves sounded more like a gasp than anything else. She felt like some desperate high school freshman, and, knowing her luck, looked like it, too.

The muscles in Sapphire’s lean legs tensed, pressing her knees together and the back of Ruby’s hand into the softness hardly an inch below them. Sapphire mocked a thoughtful hum.

 “What would you like?” Her words, slow and deliberate, washed over the sliver of Ruby’s neck left exposed between the blankets, electing a shiver more intense than any winter storm’s wind could. 

              It was supposed to be an exhale, but the air left Ruby’s lungs with a strained whine.

              “Uh,” she tipped her head back against the wall with a hollow thump that seemed to echo like white noise inside her head; the sound was a subconscious plea for those chapped lips that were already so close to her skin to just close the gap between them as much as it was a practical use for the building. The whole situation was starting to make Ruby feel light-headed.

“Could I…” The question was too open-ended. What would she like?  Anything, _everything_. Apparently, the little peek down Sapphire’s shirt and the mapping Ruby’s hands had done of her body had done nothing to tide her over. The beautiful gasp of her name echoed in her mind, and her fingers twitched in longing to run over the smooth curves of Sapphire’s hips again. The teasing taste she had gotten that night had only made her more desperate, and it wasn’t helping her that it had been _quite a while since._

A sidelong glance to gauge what little expression Sapphire offered and Ruby made up her mind: “For every answer I get right, could I have a kiss?”

Sapphire looked up at her from her comfortable headrest of Ruby’s shoulder, unblinking and face ever unreadable. “That’s all you want?”

She sound offended, a little hurt even, and Ruby found herself in a desperate game of mental catch-up. “I-I mean, _no_ , but—“ In her fixation on not asking for _too much_ she had asked for _too little,_ and now that she was taking time to nitpick every syllable that had come tumbling out of her mouth, it made sense. They weren’t children, this wasn’t high school, and Sapphire certainly had more to offer than innocent, playful kisses. A _lot_ more, and was quite willing to give it, too. 

“I’m sor—“

 “What compound is Al2O3?”

The question jostled Ruby out of her fixated thoughts, cutting her off in her jumbled apology. “Uh, its…Aluminum Oxide, right?” she answered slowly, wary. Before Sapphire's help, a question like that may as well have been in a foreign language; Ruby should have been proud of herself, but all she felt was a pinch of guilt and the heavy weight of mild inferiority.

Cool, wind-chapped lips pressed against her cheek, and Ruby’s entire demeanor changed. “I meant on the lips,” she said, with the hopeful tug of a smile on her lips. She whipped around to face Sapphire, eyes already closed as she eagerly awaited her proper – and in her opinion, well deserved – reward, but was met instead with the startlingly sharp edge of a manicured nail, hushing her.

“Then get the next one right.” Sapphire gave Ruby’s bottom lip a playful tap, then turned back to the textbook. 

Ruby swallowed, giving Sapphire a slow, but determined nod to continue. 

“What form is it most commonly found in?”

 The whole ‘sexy teacher’ archetype had never been one Ruby understood. In her experience, teachers were generally ill-tempered and unfair, rude and uncompassionate... but Sapphire, with her bright eyes looking expectantly up at Ruby through the spaces in her bangs, and a pen tapping quietly against the pages of the textbook, Ruby started to see the appeal.  Though, to be fair, Sapphire could make _janitors_ seem attractive.

“Crystalline…? No, no, no, wait, uh—“

“Don’t second-guess yourself,” Sapphire interrupted, scooting onto her hip to press a much too quick – and slightly rough, due to the damage done by the storm – kiss to Ruby’s lips. Ruby followed as Sapphire pulled back, desperately prolonging the contact, until she was teetering on the edge of either falling face first into Sapphire’s lap or admitting defeat. Even if the former sounded better, Ruby’s pride told her to do otherwise.

Sapphire bit her lip in a smirk as Ruby stumbled to catch herself, gripping the top of Sapphire’s thigh through the blanket.

“What’s the particular name for Aluminum Oxide in its crystalline phase?” Ruby stopped in a skeptical panic.

“Will that even be on the test?” If it was, she would need a lot more than five days of Sapphire’s tutoring to make it through this final exam.

“No.”

A sigh of “Thank god,” passed Ruby’s lips at the words before Sapphire’s teasing, “But I’m making it extra credit,” wiped the relief from her face.

Her thick eyebrows raised. Oh. _Oh._ “S-so, uh, if I get this right,” Ruby’s voice quivered to the same tune of her unsteady nerves. She was buying herself time, creeping her way closer to Sapphire with an arm around the girl’s narrow shoulders as her poorly disguised motive. “Will I get _extra points_?”

 “That is what extra credit does, yes.”

“Is it…” Ruby craned her neck, nearly pressing her warm cheek against Sapphire’s as she squinted at the book in the girl’s lap, eyes scanning the tiny text with little accuracy, “…Weird ‘A’ Aluminum Oxide?”  Ruby’s nose wrinkled with the strain to her eyes and she leaned in closer, abandoning her not-so-subtle guise to cheating. She stopped almost nose-to-nose with the page, studying the odd letter before Sapphire slapped the book shut against her cheek.

“ _Alpha_ Aluminum Oxide,” Sapphire corrected, “And cheaters don’t earn extra credit.”  She finished firmly, but the upward quirk to the corners of her mouth gave away that she wasn’t as displeased as she sounded.

“Oh, c’mon! That’s not fair!” Ruby never thought she would be one to argue a ‘grade’, but if grades were touches and kisses from pretty women instead of arbitrary numbers on a piece of paper, a lot of things would have gone different with her schooling. Likely, she would have been a star student. “This is chemistry, not Latin, and that was a cheap shot and you know it!” Ruby’s bottom lip set in a huffy pout, foot thumping against the end of the bed in mild agitation. Sapphire pursed her lips into a decided frown.

“It’s _Greek_ , Ruby,” she huffed, plucking the top off her pen and jotted something down in the corner of her textbook.

“Okay, but-“ Ruby was ready to make some kind of half-baked argument on how she deserved an A for effort, that all her hard work shouldn’t be for nothing, but veered directions at the last moment. “But _you_ put so much work into helping me.” Sapphire may have been stubborn, but Ruby could be persuasive. That, or people tended to take pity on her. “Just because I failed, doesn’t mean you should go unrewarded, right?”

Ruby’s voice lacked all the qualities that made Sapphire’s enticing; it wasn’t low or silky smooth or positively dripping with quiet, sensual undertones. It was rough and oddly high-pitched, sounding more strained when she was quiet than when speaking at her normal, nearly obnoxious volume, and provided no subtlety to her emotions. 

“Did you steal that line from a cheap porno?” Sapphire puffed out a dry laugh, “I was hoping you’d have better taste than that.” The comment earned another disapproving huff from Ruby, but it was the last jab Sapphire had breath to make.

The firm grip of Ruby’s hand atop Sapphire’s thigh acted as a volt, pushing her up onto her knees.

“I’ve got good taste.” Rough fingers swiped up the side of Sapphire’s cheek, leaving warm trails behind as they threaded through her bangs. She let herself indulge for a moment, admiring what was revealed, debating if this was okay, if it would frighten Sapphire again, but the shy little turn of the girl’s head made up her mind. She planted a gentle kiss on Sapphire’s left cheek, then Ruby’s hands continued their lovingly slow path to the back of Sapphire’s neck. 

“I mean, I asked _you_ out. I’d say I’ve got _really_ good taste,” Ruby murmured, smooth and confidant, but the words brought a tickle of laughter to Sapphire’s throat.

Their lips locked between quiet breaths of giggling that slowly subsided into silence, then reignited as sharp intakes of breath, escalating to gasps and sighs. Hands that started out perched in innocent places traveled into neutral territory. Ruby’s palms slid down Sapphire’s curves, while smaller hands broke out from under the warmth of the blanket, quickly seeking the much greater heat Ruby had to offer. They ended up balled in the front of her shirt, their icy tips brushing against Ruby’s belly as she coaxed her down for another kiss.

“Sapphire,” Ruby breathed against her lips, and the feeling made Sapphire’s grip on Ruby’s shirt tighten, pulling her down into another slow, lingering kiss before Ruby broke it with “Your fingers are fucking cold.”

“Oh-,” Sapphire made to pull them back, but the moment’s shaky struggle to untangle her long fingers from the oversized folds of Ruby’s shirt changed her mind. Why fight fate, when it so clearly had other plans for those little, cold fingers? They snuck their way under Ruby’s shirt, spreading flat over her stomach, and a mischievous grin beamed up at Ruby as she hissed at the contact, gritting her teeth through a playful smile back. Her fingers worked their way up slowly, tiptoeing higher, sliding over the wonderfully warm expanse of taut muscle. Sapphire lifted her wrists, and with them, the hem of Ruby’s shirt, letting her one good eye roam over the same subtle hills and valleys her fingers traced.

Ruby dressed in a way that could be kindly called ‘comfortable’, and that was all fine and well, but it was a right crime with what she was hiding underneath the baggy layers of ill-fitting, outdated clothes. Sapphire drew in a breath to the same tune of Ruby’s shivering sigh as chilled fingertips brushed just above her waist.

“S-Sa-Sapphire, too cold,” Ruby stuttered, finally snatching away her tortuously cold palms and shoving them back under the blankets, “You gotta find another way to warm your hands, I can’t take that anymore.” Ruby ran her own hands up under her shirt, rubbing the chills away from her skin.

“I wasn’t trying to warm my hands,” Sapphire corrected, tucking her hands back between her knees under the blankets to keep in the heat she had stolen.  “I was trying to take off your shirt.”

Something akin to a whimper left Ruby’s throat, and she blamed it on a residual shiver.

 “Uh, w-why would you want to…?“ She knew her question was stupid before she even finished asking it, and in that realization she trailed off.

“I want to look at you,” Sapphire answered, blunt as always, but the girl never failed to sound enticing. A dry swallow caught in her throat, and Ruby felt like she might choke on her own breath.

“Y-you don’t want that,” Ruby shook her head, hands pulling the hem of her shirt down far enough to probably leave it stretched out, “I don’t r-really have anything to look at. Not like _you_ —“

The sound of shifting fabric drew Ruby’s attention, and it took her until Sapphire’s shoulders were raised to find the source. With a quick extension of the girl’s arms, and a struggle with her hair and the collar of her turtleneck that required a grip steadier than Ruby’s to come out of unscathed, she was bare. Or so Ruby thought, for a horrifying thrilling moment.

For Sapphire, however, who was usually covered in beautiful, but conservative, clothing, she may as well have been. Not even an inch of shoulder was covered by the thin straps of her undershirt, the neck of which had gotten ruffled in the battle for freedom from her sweater. Sapphire favored flattening her bangs back into place over pulling her top up over the peek of lace it exposed.

“You don’t know what I want,” Sapphire’s hands settled on Ruby’s hips, coaxing but not forceful, “You'd better keep me warm now, though.”

 Ruby jumped into action, throwing the blankets over her shoulders like a cape, and the moment she leaned in, arms coming around to snuggle Sapphire close in her warmth, a bang like thunder sounded.

Sapphire flinched, ducking under the expanse of the blankets, and Ruby wrapped her arms around her possessively, holding tight enough to bruise her delicate shoulders. Another bang went off, and she honestly thought the bed frame had finally given out under them.

“Don’t mind me, ya’ll can keep at it.”

Ruby whipped around, seething in a bubbling concoction of anger and embarrassment, as Amethyst shuffled through the maze of mess on her side of the room, balancing her open laptop on one hand and a bag of chips in the other.

“D-did you even knock!?” Ruby squealed, pulling some kind of backwards shuffle out from under the blanket so as to not uncover Sapphire. The girl’s modesty meant far more to her than her own.

“You never do,” Amethyst shrugged, flopping onto her mattress and molding a mass of clothes and blankets into a kind of barrier between her bed and the rest of the room, “And yes, I do have to be in here,” she continued, as Ruby opened her mouth again, “Apparently I’m _‘too loud’_   to hang out in the common room.” She rolled her eyes overdramatically. “All this finals studying BS, you know.”

Ruby had gotten out of her bed, stomped over to Amethyst’s, and was about ready to pick the girl up and put her out the door herself when Sapphire’s quiet voice cut her off.

“It’s fine,” she said, as much to Amethyst as to Ruby, “We were actually studying, too.” Her hand patted the space next to her with a slap louder than Ruby expected from someone so small. “ _Right,_ Ruby?” It was the closest thing to a glare Sapphire had sent her way in a long time, and it turned her anger to quiet, red-faced frustration.

“Whatever you wanna call it's fine. I’ve got my headphones.” A pudgy hand shot up from over the blanket wall, dismissing them both with a wave clutched around a pair of tangled ear buds.

________________________________________________________________________

 

 “What the _fuck_ ¸ Amethyst?” Ruby snarled, gesturing to the door the second it smacked shut behind Sapphire. With how thin the walls were, the girl could surely hear her, but Ruby’s mind was like a one lane, one-way street.

“Blame the monitor downstairs, not me, okay?” Amethyst sighed, plucking out a single earphone despite Ruby being more than loud enough to overpower her movie. She rolled her eyes and upped the volume.

“I do blame you!” Magazines, laundry, and various other knickknacks were shoved out of the way of Ruby’s feet as she stomped herself the short distance to Amethyst’s nest. Her knee slid down the side of the mattress, banging against the bed frame; it was going to leave a bruise, but Ruby hardly felt it. The blanket wall came tumbling down on top of Amethyst as Ruby leaned over, slapping the screen to her computer shut. “You embarrassed Sapphire, barging in like that! All you had to do was knock, or apologize, or... something!”

“Yeah, and all _you_ had to do was leave a sock on the door, or maybe send me a text?” Amethyst growled back, shoving her computer off her chest to sit up and pushing the blankets out of her way. “ ‘Oh, hey, Amethyst. I know I’ve had my head so far up this girl’s ass that I haven’t even said hi to you in a week,’” She said, pitching her voice up in a mockery of Ruby’s, “But could you do me a favor and _fuck off_ for a little while longer!?”

Ruby tugged her hands through her hair in frustration, or tried to. Her fingers got stuck in the gifted headband she had taken to wearing on a daily basis, and she yanked her fingers back, frizzing the tightly wound curls they tore through.

“You’re so inconsiderate!” she howled,  “A-and selfish–”

“–and stubborn, hot-headed, childish, and rude, but so are you!” Amethyst finished for her, grabbing a pillow from the base of her torn-down barrier and hugging it to her chest, an angry fist smushing the stuffing flat. “It’s a miracle someone like _her_ lets you do whatever you two were doin’.”

“We weren’t doing anything!” Ruby barked back. She wasn’t trying to feign modesty; Amethyst was regrettably aware of nearly every gritty detail of Ruby’s past love life, if it could even be called that when there was no such emotion involved.  Ruby wanted to make her feel guilty, because thanks to her, Sapphire and she never _got_ to do anything. 

“Oh yeah – Ruby, lonely Straight Girl Whisperer, master of the regrettable One Night Stand, was doin’ nothin’,” Amethyst scoffed.

“We weren’t– we haven’t–!“ Words never came easily to her, but this was a battle to verbalize something (anything!) coherent with low-blow insults, childish anger, and burning embarrassment all trying to work their way past her lips at the same time . There was always such a traffic jam when Amethyst got like this.

“Yeah, and I haven’t touched a drink since high school, neither.”

 (Ruby was gullible, and sarcasm often went way over her head, but Amethyst’s jab hit her smack in the chest. )

“D’you really think I’m gonna believe that?”

It felt like Ruby’s teeth might crack from the grinding pressure. “What’s your deal?” she bit out, slowly, because concentrating on the syllables was the only thing keeping her from raising her voice.

“Oh, I don’t know. My best friend just up and ditched me nearly all semester?” Amethyst lurched forward, slamming the pillow down under her hands and gripping her fingers tightly into its cover. “I thought this was going to be fun! I thought living with you would be cool –  no parents, no rules, under a roof that was finally _mine –_ but even then I get kicked out left and right! Even _you_ don’t want me here—“

“I’m sorry,” Ruby bit out, and it was nowhere near heartfelt. She refused to make eye contact with Amethyst, and instead turned her head to gnaw on her fingernails.

The metal bed springs squealed, and then a deep breath let out in a not-so-calm manor: “Mean it.”

Ruby finally chanced a glance over at Amethyst’s pile of cushions, and was met with a decided glare from under a mess of bedhead.

“I… do mean it,” she admitted, followed by a grumbled breath of, “But I’m not done being mad at you.”

“Then we’re in the same boat.” Amethyst sat back, leaning against the wall and crossing her arms over her chest. She tried to look Ruby in the face, but the girl wouldn’t turn her way. “Sapphire looks like she’d be stingy with that kinda thing. I’m sorry I ruined your home run.” Amethyst shrugged like it didn’t really matter, but kept her eyes trained on Ruby for recognition.

At the time it hadn’t even crossed Ruby’s mind that things could have escalated to that point – she had been so caught up in the moment – and the thought brought on another wave of bitter resentment and embarrassment.

“We weren’t even--!” Ruby bit her lip, huffing a sigh of hot air out of her lungs before continuing. If she was supposed to be sorry, she probably shouldn’t yell anymore. “ I want to take things... slow with her.” Ruby’s hands were growing hot, clenching and unclenching in an attempt to shake the feeling. “Sapphire’s special. I don’t want this to be like everything else.”

“Oh man,” Amethyst’s eyes widened and her expression morphed into a seething grin. “Are you trying to tell me you haven’t done _anything?”_ She leaned forward, perching on the edge of the mattress, ready to pounce if Ruby tried to wriggle her way out of this one.

“I’ve kissed her, and--!” Ruby turned on her heels, ready to give Amethyst another earful, but the sneer on the girl's face shut her up.  She wasn’t really one to kiss and tell, but Amethyst lived on nothing but gossip and junk food, and even after nineteen long years of digging herself into a hole with her words as a shovel, Ruby still never knew when to quit. 

“And?” Amethyst egged her on, grin nearly splitting her ear to ear.

There was nothing more to tell.

“…She’s _classy,_ not stingy.” Ruby grumbled finally, feeling the heat in her hands creeping up her neck and shoulders.

“Are you sure you want a _classy_ girl?” Amethyst joked, before a dark eyed glare hushed her. “I’m sorry, man, I actually feel kinda bad now.”

“You didn’t before!?” Ruby squeaked, sending a look Amethyst’s way that was closer to disbelief than a glare. Amethyst shook her head, shrugging off the look Ruby shot her.

“Neither did you.”

Ruby couldn’t argue with that (though if she had the energy left she would have tried). She huffed, dropping down to sit next to Amethyst on her bed. She alternated between picking at her fingernails and pushing on the steadily forming bruise on her knee, watching her skin pale before the purple color blossomed back. It was kind of gross, but kept her mind off the awkward silence. Fights between them never ended in heartfelt apologies.

Amethyst frowned at Ruby, eying her expression with a sigh. “I’ll stay out of the room tomorrow night 'til two, okay?” She offered, nudging Ruby with her shoulder, “But you’re gonna be paying me back _all winter break_.”

“That seems fair,” Ruby agreed in a mumble. She felt guilty because Amethyst was right; if Ruby went through her phone history, every message and call over the past few months would have been to Sapphire, with only one or two to her roommate, probably asking for a favor.  She felt even worse, though, because she was still angry about the situation.

Amethyst knocked against her again, harder this time, and with a smile, clarified, “You’re gonna watch _all_ of _Little Butler_ with me, and we’re marathoning that shit.”

__________________________________

Sleet tapped against the foggy window as the storm’s gale picked up, blowing everything that fell from the thick layer of clouds at an almost perfect right angle. The tapping was insistent, sharp, and distracting – _every_ sound was distracting. The dull scratch of Sapphire’s decorated pen on the paper of her equally decorated notebook, the whirring of laptop fans, the crisp slide of textbook pages, and the metaphorical cogs in Ruby’s head turning, trying to draw out the memory of what silicon even was _._

The low, grumbling hum Sapphire made as her fingernails clicked against her phone screen was the most distracting of all, and forced Ruby to pull the practice test Sapphire had written for her close enough to her face to see the tiny flecks of glitter in the pen’s ink. Another distraction to stray her attention.

“I think I’m stuck here.”

Ruby tore her bleary eyes away from the test, looking up at Sapphire with just as much confusion as she gave the glittery scrawls. She had been working on this test for over an hour now, words were beginning to lose all meaning.

“Stuck?”

 Sapphire directed her gaze to the window above them with a turn of her head.

 “The buses just got canceled because of the storm,” she said with very little concern, picking her phone out of the folds of her skirt and turning its completely scratchless screen to Ruby. It showed the university’s alert text header, where underneath in bold was written, ‘University bus routes are canceled until further notice due to weather.’ A tiny ‘we apologize for the inconvenience’ was added after.

“Oh,” Ruby said after a moment of squinting at the screen. “You can just stay the night.” She suggested, without having thought the words through, because thinking at all was starting to give her a headache. That, and she really wanted to finish this test. There were only two questions left and Sapphire had promised her a break once she finished.

The sleet continued to slap against the window, and Ruby chewed her pen, eyes glazing over on the test question. The answer was right at the forefront of her mind, she could _feel_ it, but Sapphire posed a distraction once again. You would think Sapphire would be quiet, being the one who very firmly suggested they study and all.

“It will be nice to have someone to keep me warm tonight.”

Ruby bit down on her pen with enough startled force to crack the cap, staring blankly at her test for a different reason entirely now.

“My apartment’s always freezing,”  Sapphire added, scooting closer to Ruby and snatching the test away from where it lay limp on her lap. She folded and tucked it away as a bookmark into her textbook, saying, “We’ll take our break early.”

It was under completely different circumstances that Sapphire had spent her first night in Ruby’s room. There was no actual sleeping, first of all, so there was no need to share a bed, and no worrying about “what if she snores and no one’s ever had the heart to tell her?”  Morning classes had negated the potential ‘morning after’ situation, and they weren’t…whatever they were now. The thought that Ruby should probably get that sorted out sooner rather than later interjected her excited panic. 

“We have _all night,_ after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the mini science lesion in there. I saw my chance for some rock science and I took it: crystalline aluminum oxide is the main base for rubies and sapphires, and chromium and iron are what makes them red and blue, respectively. I also took Latin for six years and Greek for two, so I had to put Ruby mistaking the languages in there because I can’t even fathom the number of times I’ve sat in class pulling my hair out while professors do the same. This is, after all, one huge vent fic. 
> 
> On another note:  
> Since it’s a human AU, I felt weird having this town conveniently filled with kids named after rocks, so Amethyst isn’t her real name here, but a nickname she picked shortly after meeting Ruby. The rock’s name is taken from two Greek words, meaning “without drunkenness” and was generally thought to keep you sober if you wore it (hence her little comment about not drinking), so that, paired with a humanized interpretation of her less than stellar childhood, deep-seated self-loathing, and general rebel nature lead her to some poor life choices. Meeting Ruby was kind of a turning point, even if it wasn’t Ruby herself who turned Amethyst’s life around, and she picked the name for its meaning.  
> As for the other gem’s names: Sapphire (as I may or may not get into later so might as well do toss it out there) has a mother who’s not mentally 100% there and is obsessed with her social status as a trophy wife, and wanted the world to know she was rolling in cash but also super good looking by naming all of her daughters after beautiful, expensive rocks.  
> Pearl, Ruby, Rose, and Jasper are all legit names, so no issues there, even if Jasper is generally a masculine name.  
> Lapis probably won’t show up, but her name started as a way to make fun of her in grade school that stuck. She was odd and wouldn’t speak to anyone, (other than the occasional fart noise and obnoxious repeating of whatever was said to her) so kids only heard her last name being called for roll. Calling her Lapis was the logical choice. Also I imagine her being part Pakistani, so her name probably would have been hard for the other kids to say, anyway. Fun fact: Lapis Lazuli is literally Latin for “rock rock” and I’m really hoping that’s why she first showed herself in the show as a mirror that can only repeat words.  
> No fusions are gonna show, so I just side stepped that one, and I honestly can’t come up with anything for Peridot. Poor little thing always gets the short end of the stick.  
> Enough useless AU headcanon junk. Next chapter Ruby will finally complete her quest.


	8. Sweater Weather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's finally here. The M rating you've all been waiting for.

Previously, the only thing Ruby had been unprepared for was the dress code, but in this instance, ill-prepared was an understatement. The only thing she had under control was the interrupting roommate situation, which even then was only bandaged in a short-term fix.

They shared a dinner of Hot Pockets, eaten over brown paper napkins, huddled together on the same side of a dingy common room table. The central heating was a joke, and a space any larger than Ruby’s dorm room froze any warmth the archaic air system could produce. Many other students, forced to fend for themselves after the cafeterias closed ‘due to weather, sorry for the inconvenience’, came wrapped in blankets. Ruby wished she had had the same idea, because feeling the girl shiver next to her was a worse fate than inhaling her food and burning her tongue in the process. If it meant they could get back to her relatively warm room sooner, it was worth the rough tenderness of the tip of her tongue.

The next dilemma didn’t show up for another few hours (spent studying by phone light under a fort of half-stolen blankets, which had honestly taken more time to build than they had spent in it). The mismatched blankets, held to the wall with tape and thumbtacks, trapped in their heat and muffled giggles, and hid their chaste, playful kisses from the cold world around them (even if they did have the room to themselves). It was only when Sapphire pulled back, running fingers through the static tangles in her hair, that the problem arose.

“Can I borrow something to sleep in?”

“Yeah,” were the words out of Ruby’s mouth before she could catch them, ever eager to be accommodating.

She didn’t exactly own pajamas, but rather embarrassing hand-me-down souvenir shirts from her dad and gym shorts. They worked well enough for someone like Ruby, who was hot-natured, with a could-care-less attitude on style. Ruby backed her way out of their makeshift tent, lifting the edges carefully to keep Sapphire warm while she rummaged frantically through her pile of clean laundry by the foot of the bed. Or what she hoped it was the clean pile.

 After a wary look over her shoulder at Sapphire, who was exerting very little effort to find her way out of the blankets, Ruby snatched a shirt off the top, holding it to her face and taking a deep inhale. Yeah, this was the clean pile. Though, apparently all her non-embarrassing tops were in the dirty pile. The best thing she could come up with to offer Sapphire was a startlingly bright pink and teal sweatshirt that looked like it belonged to the goofy, try too hard, single dad in an 80s sitcom, which, honestly, was a fairly accurate description of her own father.

“Uh, sorry,” Ruby winced as she handed the thing to Sapphire, expecting to hear that same, monotone hum that was the closest thing to distaste Sapphire was capable of giving, “I think Amethyst’s been taking my stuff again, so this is all that’s clean…”

Instead, she heard a smile in Sapphire’s “I like it.” Ruby must not be familiar with how sarcasm sounded in Sapphire’s tone, because her ears picked up none.

“I’m gonna go wash up,” was followed by a wheeze from the mattress and a gentle kiss to Ruby’s forehead in thanks for her charity. 

“I-I think there’s an extra tooth brush under the sink,” Ruby said quickly as Sapphire vanished into the tiny bathroom.

The click of the door shutting jogged her memory; the bathroom hadn’t been cleaned since last month. She grimaced at the thought, but there was little she could do now other than blame the mess entirely on Amethyst. 

Problem number three startled Ruby into a gasp that left her feeling like her lungs might burst from the sheer volume of air they were trying to hold.  She had given Sapphire that awful, tacky sweatshirt, and _only_ that awful, tacky sweatshirt.

She dove back into the overflowing basket of clean clothes, frantically digging around as if her wardrobe wasn’t equal parts gym shorts and oversized tops. The instant her fingers grabbed the particular pair she was looking for (the ones that came to mid-thigh, because Sapphire was _classy,_ right?), the sputtering sound of the shower head, followed by the shifting and creaking of pipes in the wall and the metal-on-metal slide of the shower curtain startled the garment out of her grip. It fell back into the balled-up mass it came from, and any hope Ruby had of preserving Sapphire’s modesty, and the relative calm she had managed to conjure, was lost with it.

Ruby took to pacing the gap between the two beds; not even a full semester into her education and the carpet there had already been trampled flat. Movement was the best outlet for her jittery energy, though she had so much of it that a marathon probably couldn’t tire her out.

“Pull yourself together,” she muttered to herself, taking a turn as her toes knocked into the desk on the opposite end of the room. It hurt, but gave a second’s worth of distraction to her frantic emotions. 

It wasn’t as if Sapphire would be completely bare, just her legs, Ruby tried to tell herself, as rough fingers pulled through her curls. Just long, lean, beautifully tan legs that Ruby had _dreamed_ of touching since the first flash of thigh was granted to her by the autumn wind weeks ago when it whipped Sapphire’s skirt. The girl was elegant in her effortless catch of the hem, balling it up in her hand so the wind couldn’t take it any higher.

 Ruby remembered, with a pang of self-disgust, falling a few paces behind Sapphire after that, hopeful for another fall breeze that never came.

The glimpse she got then, though, was nothing to the long, hard look she was greeted with as she turned the corner on another lap of the room.

 “Hey,” Sapphire said blandly, leaning against the bathroom door as she tugged her hair down from the messy bun it had been pulled into on the top of her head.

Ruby’s whole body stiffened, freezing in mid-step as everything in her screamed “don’t look, don’t look!'' Instead, her eyes flickered up for a hopeful glimpse of Sapphire’s face, but there was no such luck in store for her; Sapphire was quick-fingered, and already tossing her pretty curls over one shoulder to twist into a lazy braid. Her bangs had long since been smoothed back onto her face, though the few stray pieces poking up at odd angles told Ruby she had just missed her chance. It was a pretty good summary of her life.

 “Hey…” Ruby repeated the word because it rang in her ears, and it’s single syllable was simple enough to form from muscle memory. When had the shower gone off? She hadn’t even noticed. 

Ruby had very little self-control, and it was difficult to hold eye contact with someone unwilling to actually show their eyes; it was inevitable that Ruby’s would wonder. The top fit Sapphire nothing like it fit Ruby. Their proportions were completely different, even if they were arguably the same height. (Arguably, only because Ruby _insisted_ Sapphire’s advantage came from her high society posture, not the actual single inch she had over Ruby).

On the occasion Ruby had worn the colorful thing, much to Amethyst’s amusement, it could be confused for a dress. An ugly dress, but a dress none the less. Sapphire, however, was _entirely_ legs.  It fit her like it was already begging to be taken off; the sleeves pooled around the cuffs at her narrow wrists, threatening to cover her hands if she didn’t keep her fingers spread. The neck was trying to make a break for it down the curve of her shoulder, and the hem sat teasingly just above the tips of the girl’s fingers.

It was a startling contrast to her usual skirts, which looked like they would be the envy of any 1950s housewife, worn lately with tights and less frequently with socks, which in the summer were pushed down around her ankles. Her pleats exposed nothing above her knees. It made sense for her to cover up: Sapphire attracted a lot of attention, and Ruby never failed to notice it, following the lustful gazes of passersby with a gaze of her own, heated and unwavering for another reason entirely.

Even as Ruby stared, choking on the sudden breath she took as her lungs finally screamed loud enough to kick-start her recollection of how to breathe, she made a mental note to write home tomorrow. She never did thank her father properly for these hand-me-downs.

 “Y-you didn’t wash your hair,” Ruby blurted out, not even looking Sapphire in the face as she spoke, and she felt another bite of that self-disgust from earlier for it; Sapphire was so much more than just a pretty face, or pair of legs, as it were, but they looked just as soft as they had felt the other evening, potentially warm and undeniable inviting as the girl shifted her weight to one hip.   

“I’ll wake up looking like a lion if I sleep on it wet.” Sapphire explained as she looped a tie at the end of her braid, even if it was very clear Ruby was hardly listening. She brushed past Ruby with a smile, giving the girl’s hand a guiding tug as she went to uproot her from the carpet. “Let’s finish that test.”

The next thing Ruby was aware of was the feeling of a pen between her fingers and a piece of paper in her hand. Her eyes followed the words on the page in a daze, squinting at the last two questions. They made even less sense than they had a few hours prior. She read even slower than normal, too, and frequently her eyes flitted up over the top of the page, taking in the sight of Sapphire seated on the edge of the bed next to her, legs crossed in that usual nonchalant way of hers (though the position exposed a very _unusual_ amount of skin).

 The pink ribbing on the borrowed sweatshirt crept up as it stretched around Sapphire’s hips, and Ruby didn’t know if it was wishful thinking or actual fact, but she could have sworn the tiniest hint of lace peeked out from underneath.

 “How do you think you did?” Sapphire’s voice came as a chuckle, and Ruby didn't notice the test had been snatched from her until she saw it in Sapphire’s hands.  

“Really nice,” Ruby answered, biting her lip as Sapphire uncrossed her legs to use her lap as a reasonably flat surface to scribble corrections on Ruby’s test with, “Really, really nice.”  She breathed, knuckles of the hand supporting her just grazing the side of Sapphire’s leg when the girl shifted.

It took the quiet, accidental snort of laughter to tear Ruby out of her tiny fantasy. She jumped where she sat, straightening up and retracting the hand that wanted to linger dangerously close to Sapphire’s smooth skin.

“Y-You know you’re distracting me, don’t you?” Ruby accused, turning to Sapphire with a burn in her cheeks that trickled down her shoulders and back like hot water poured over her head. 

 “Yeah,”  Sapphire snickered, giving Ruby’s hot cheek a kiss in halfhearted apology that knocked their shoulders together, “You were asking for it, just staring at me like that.” Sapphire wrote a rushed eighty three in the top corner of Ruby's test, and set the paper aside. “I’m not _completely_ blind.”

              The frantic apology sizzled out in the heat of Ruby’s throat as Sapphire stood, and for a horrifying moment, Ruby thought she was leaving. But Sapphire wasn’t so cruel. She hardly stepped away, swiftly situating herself between Ruby's unladylike open legs, both hands on the girl’s sturdy shoulders. Sapphire leaned down slowly, aligning their mouths for a quick kiss.

 If Ruby’s father had only preferred V-neck sweaters, the image before her would have been worthy of a centerfold.

Another kiss, and Ruby’s hands found a solid resting place on the sloping curves of Sapphire’s hips. It was habit that guided her hands there, and the shocking chill of the girl’s damp skin forced her fingers to curl into the colorful fabric.

A third, and Ruby felt another cool brush of skin, this time against the outside of her leg, accompanied by the squeaking protest of the mattress as Sapphire’s weight was added back to it.

 “It was pretty bold of you to not lend me shorts,”  Sapphire said, and the look she shot down at Ruby could only be described as devious, even if it was paired with a shy bite to her lip.

“I-I-I can get you some!” Ruby’s voice cracked like a middle school boy’s and her throat tightened in a dry swallow. Sapphire’s other leg was up on the bed before Ruby had finished speaking, and the whine from the springs was almost identical to the sound squeezed from Ruby’s throat.

“Do you really want that?” The only hint of uncertainty Sapphire gave was the tenseness in her legs that held her up, effectively straddling Ruby’s lap, but not yet making herself comfortable, even if it felt like every nerve in Ruby’s body was screaming with anticipation for the motion. Ruby gazed up at her, and it all felt so intimate. Seeing Sapphire with her face wiped clean of makeup, smelling like the spice of _Ruby’s_ soap, covered, barely, with _Ruby’s_ clothes. It took her breath away; figuratively at first, but then literally when her hands worked up the nerve to slide down from Sapphire’s hips, come around to the soft backs of the girl’s thighs, and pullher forward.

Ruby could pick her up like this if she really wanted to, and if it weren’t for the low ceilings, she might have tried. But the last thing she wanted was to interrupt their impromptu time together with a trip to the hospital. With how set the stars were on presenting this, whatever _this_ was going to be, Ruby dared not test fate.

 Instead, they toppled over, and with what must have been a sound of surprise from Sapphire, they fell into a patch of flowery quilts and fleece blankets.

“No,” Ruby grinned, giddy voice muffled by the piling fabric of Sapphire’s sweatshirt. She held her closer to savor the feeling. There was so much skin-to-skin contact that it was almost overwhelming. Sapphire’s lips on hers, those ever-chilled fingers acting as support on Ruby’s shoulders, wiggling under the neck of her shirt and electing shivers. Long legs pressed firmly to either side of hers. Slowly Sapphire settled, melting into the contact like the sleet on the window above them. It was dizzying, and left them both drawing in sharp gasps from the same haze of chilly air in the moments between kisses. 

Everything blurred together as Ruby’s hands began to archive every inch of Sapphire’s smooth skin, roaming without hesitance because Sapphire exhibited none herself, and because Ruby had learned her lesson about taking too little. The feeling left her nerves buzzing, tingling with excitement that whirred in her chest and hummed in her ears, whispering encouragements for her to push this further, to curl her fingers under the baggy hem of that sweater, or run her hands _all the way up_ the back of Sapphire’s thighs... to crane her shoulders and pull down the neck of Sapphire’s top that was barely hanging onto the girls shoulders by a thread. One suggestion, though, sounded very different than the others.

They say good things come to those who wait, and Ruby had waited a very long time, at least by her standards and unfaithful attention span.

With a finger hooked around the gaudy pink ribbing on the neck of her sweatshirt, Sapphire’s hand started to fall. It didn’t have to drop much, but Ruby’s eyes followed it every millimeter of the way.

“Don’t be shy, Ruby,” was the suggestion, given firmly and followed by a very subtle arch of the girl’s back that pushed her chest forward, as if she needed to look more enticing.

Ruby needed no more encouragement than that, and she probably couldn’t have held back her hands much longer, anyway. Her palms absolutely burned with the want to feel more skin.

Blunt fingertips burrowed under the loose hem of Sapphire’s top, brushing in a tickling touch over Sapphire’s soft belly, rewarding her with a shudder and hiccuping giggles that were hushed as the tiny gap between their lips was sealed closed.

The first touch was tentative and careful, so unlike anything Ruby ever did, but Sapphire had a way of pulling her into the here and now, and the urge to savor the feeling overcame any rush to a so called finish line.

That wasn’t to say, though, that Ruby teased.  With a graze of teeth on Sapphire’s bottom lip as her lead-in, Ruby’s hands rushed forward, pushing up against Sapphire’s breasts and curling her fingers around them in one smooth, gentle motion. She could see the tips of her fingers just past the sweater’s loose neck, her skin contrasting beautifully against the cool hue of Sapphire’s, but that wasn’t what had her mesmerized. It was the way her fingers sank into the soft skin after a testing squeeze, making Sapphire’s chest expand in a quiet gasp, that Ruby’s fixation focused in on.

Ruby’s hands were big, thick-fingered and wide-palmed, but they still struggled to cup around the smooth, plush curve of Sapphire’s chest. Sapphire bowed her back further, pushing against Ruby’s hands with a smile that said she knew _exactly_ what she was doing. Ruby swore under her breath. Her eyes closed, only for a brief moment, because she began to feel a little light headed again.

The loss of vision opened her up for a surprise attack from slender fingers. They dove under the neck of Ruby’s shirt, waking her from her momentary daze like a dunk in ice water.

“This goes both ways, right?” Sapphire smiled down at her, her fingers creeping further past Ruby’s collarbones, watching the way Ruby’s face contorted from the cold contact. She didn’t wait for a reply, either, coaxing Ruby to sit up with slow, deep kisses that she would pull away just a little too soon, until they found themselves in their original position, but with a little too much eager momentum to remain steady there.

“Yeah, but you gotta be fast, ‘cause I can’t keep my hands off you for too long,” Ruby chuckled as she toppled forward, nuzzling against Sapphire’s neck and adding, “You’re too pretty for your own good.”

Sapphire’s halfhearted grumble turned into a squeal of ticklish laughter brought on by Ruby’s quick, feather light kisses, washing over the skin of her neck like wisps of smoke, warm and winding.  Her hands were sneaky, though, and before Ruby had realized where they were, too distracted with where her _own_ hands were going, her top was balled up just under her chin, cutting into her neck with demanding little tugs.

With how unwilling Ruby was to break contact with Sapphire’s skin, getting her out of her top was a struggle that offered very little pay off.

Sapphire’s throat vibrated against Ruby’s cheek with a low, drawn-out whine, her delicate fingers curling tightly under the bottom of the sports bra Ruby had on under her pajamas.

“Ruby,” she grumbled, giving the compressed fabric a good yank in a little fit of displeasure. That wasn’t the kind of noise Ruby wanted to hear; any utterance of her name henceforth had been compared to the keening whine she had heard outside Sapphire’s apartment, and this particular disappointed growl couldn’t even hold a candle to the sound.

 “I’m shy,” Ruby giggled, and brushed Sapphire’s hands away with her own. She took her place back at the stretched-out neck of Sapphire’s sweater, laying more tickling kisses like a dividing line down her center. Ruby hadn’t planned to go quite so low, but the way Sapphire curved into the touch left her with no choice. “Unlike you,” was snickered with jittery glee into some of the softest skin Ruby could ever recall feeling. Hands came up from either side, cupping Sapphire’s breasts again through the thick sweater and gently lifting, effectively smothering herself between them in the process. 

Ruby let out a low, shaky sigh that warmed the soft curves on either side of her cheeks, turning her head to the side to kiss along the same smooth slope. Ruby craved the sound of her own name on Sapphire’s lips more than anything, and she remembered _exactly_ how she had gotten it in the first place.

A warm kiss, followed by a gentle tug to teeth was the recipe Ruby followed, repeating with more vigor because the sounds she drew from Sapphire were magnificent, but nowhere near the siren’s call she wanted. It brought her to bite, carefully, and she muttered, “Is this okay?”

“Yes,” Sapphire answered so quickly she almost cut Ruby off.

The tune was right, but the words needed work.

Ruby took to nipping at Sapphire’s skin again, sucking and teasing the spot she had latched onto into a reddened bruise. The sight, when she drew back for a peek at her work, filled her with an odd mixture of regret and thrilled pride; the mark was _dark_ even against the rich color of Sapphire’s skin, and a lot higher on the peak of her chest than Ruby had intended. She pressed her thumb to it, and the mark remained unchanged, not even paling under the pressure.

 _“Ruby—!_ “

There it was, what she had been working for all this time. The sound matched beautifully with the vision of Sapphire sprawled out on Ruby’s sheets; her hair was a silvery backsplash around her like a watercolor painting, and the single red mark on her chest a drip of unintentional color. She left Ruby awestruck and more than a little stirred up.

“You look beautiful,” she murmured.

“You’ve done plenty of looking,” Sapphire’s voice was a little lower than usual, a little more urgent, and she grabbed Ruby by the front of her sports bra, pulling her down on top of her with a soft smile that was just as inviting as the tone of her voice.

“I can never get enough.” Ruby knew what Sapphire wanted, because the way her back rose off the mattress to push her chest forward was pretty easy to understand.But Sapphire continued to whimper and twitch when Ruby’s lips went back to her exposed skin, whilst she nipped along a collarbone, and after a bite that created another slowly-reddening mark. Constant, and so insistent it frightened her a little.

“Sapphire?” Ruby whispered, drawing back in concern, because clearly she wasn’t reading the signals correctly.

Sapphire’s hips arched off the bed next, drawing Ruby’s attention away from her chest and to the sudden recollection that all Sapphire had on for bottoms were her panties – ones with dark blue lace that made Ruby’s fingers curl with a need to ease the fabric's bite into Sapphire’s plush curves.

“Just touch me already.” Those words had to be the second verse, because they caused the same emotions to resonate in Ruby as the whine of her name. It was a blend of excitement, desire, and pure pleasure, and it gave her a head-rush.

That feeling couldn’t compare to the high she felt when Sapphire grabbed her hips, though, pulling their bodies so close together that Ruby’s leg had no other place to go than between Sapphire’s.

The first verse repeated, higher pitched, more desperate, and Ruby’s own little whine joined in as a harmony when her voice failed her.

Sapphire’s hips rolled down onto Ruby’s thigh in a motion like crashing waves, smooth and continuous as she came back for more.

Ruby wasn’t sure if she was breathing at all, but Sapphire was gasping enough for the both of them, exhaling in quiet breathy whimpers that whispered their way past her full lips.

She was an absolute _vision,_ better than anything Ruby had ever seen in reality, on her computer screen, or the glossy pages of magazines that were bought as gags but studied in all seriousness.

A moan broke past Sapphire’s lips as Ruby put just the slightest bit more pressure into pushing her leg forward. It made Sapphire’s fingers curl, her nails biting against Ruby’s skin. Her hands slipped under the waistband of Ruby's gym shorts in their desperate search for anything to hold on to, and Sapphire was insistent in the downward tug she gives the elastic.

A tiny metallic ping sounded from somewhere near Ruby’s desk, and all too quickly the reason for Ruby’s shallow, staccato breaths changed.

 “S-Sapphire,” she faltered, breath coming a little faster, just shy of being considered hyperventilation as her eyes caught sight of the low glow from her computer’s clock, “W-we gotta slow this down.”

 Sapphire’s hips stopped in mid-grind against the firm muscle of Ruby’s thigh. She seemed to curl in on herself instantly, hands draped to cover her mostly-exposed chest, legs no longer stretched the length of the bed, but curled and pressing away from Ruby.

“I thought you wanted to…” The whole atmosphere seemed to freeze around her, quickly dropping from the hazy warmth of just seconds before to an uncomfortable chill.

Ruby’s hands shot up in surrender. Why could she never, not even once, _think_ before speaking? It was like her brain flipped through the pages of a dictionary to find the words with the worst possible connotations attached to them before spitting the sentence out.

“I do!” she blurted just as quickly, “I do, I really, really do. You don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve had this.” That last bit slipped through the sad excuse for a filter she had, but Sapphire’s face, what little she could see of it after how messed her hair was, was shifting from discomfort to fear and that matter needed to be addressed prior to Ruby’s little slip. “B-but—“

“Was I pushy?” Sapphire interrupted, sitting up and trying to find the balance between pulling her top up to fully cover her chest and pulling it down to cover her hips.  “Ruby, I’m _so sorry_ —“

“No , no, no, Sapphire, wait,” Ruby’s voice shook just as much as the hands that reached to still Sapphire’s, matching the girl’s panic and raising her tenfold, “Y-you know how I am with words, that came out all wrong.” She gave a shaky smile that seemed to calm Sapphire a bit, even if it did nothing for her own nerves.  “It’s just that it’s like five minutes 'til two, a-and I could only keep Amethyst out of the room 'til then.”

              The muscles in Sapphire’s shoulders visibly softened and she took a hand back from the death grip Ruby had on them.

              “Don’t scare me like that!” she scolded playfully, giving Ruby a well-deserved shove and an unearned smile, even if Sapphire’s face was still locked in an odd combination of flushed and washed-out from panic.

              “I-I’m sorry—“ Even if they had only known each other for few days short of a full semester, Sapphire already understood how long Ruby would go on apologizing if she wasn’t stopped. It had only taken a few days to figure out that a kiss was the best way to halt her words in their tracks.

“I’m gonna guess you’re not any good at keeping quiet then?” Sapphire joked, but the hopeful inflection on the end of her teasing question didn’t go unheard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took 25,000 words but we made it. this is now officially NSFW, though i wouldn't say its explicit (yet. oops)
> 
> I've got a mismatch of ideas on whats gonna happen next, but it sure is gonna be something.  
> I can guarantee, though, the return of our resident tormentor, Jasper. As well as some very fickle Sapphire, and general drama. Love takes work, right?


	9. Actions Speak Louder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was supposed to get heavy but all it got was dirty oops

 

It all started with a mild nibbling at her lip, tugging dry skin where the winter wind had made their mouth painfully chapped, and it slowly evolved into something more vigorous, until Ruby was bouncing her foot at the end of the bed, making the entire frame shake, to dispel energy. She moved to rubbing her hands over the rough surface of her pilling bed sheet, trying to scrub the wonderful feeling of Sapphire’s cool skin from her palms, and finally, it became a fidgety squeezing of her thighs together in a subtle but valiant attempt to subdue what the montage of Sapphire – that played like a blurry student film on the backs of her eyelids, accompanied by a breathless symphonic audio – had been doing to her since they crawled into bed together in a tense silence.

Having your roommate come back (even if it was at the agreed-upon time) and muttering, “Ya’ll can keep going, I just gotta sleep,” as she turned out the lights kind of killed the mood. Much more than kind of, actually.

With all the fidgeting and wiggling Ruby was doing, it was a wonder it took Sapphire so long to comment. About seven minutes of Ruby’s constant, wide-eyed stare at the glowing time stamp on her phone screen told the truth.

The protests of old bed springs as Sapphire rolled over nearly drowned her out as she whispered, “Are you always this noisy trying to sleep?” with good humor into the back of Ruby’s neck, the warm wash of her breath giving the girl a start.

“No,” Ruby answered quickly, her voice sounding much too high in its strained whisper for her liking. “Well, maybe.” She continued after a quiet cough, “I don’t normally notice.”

“I’m only asking if Amethyst sleeps through it.”

“Oh, yeah!” Ruby’s voice came a little louder in her relieved realization that Sapphire wasn’t complaining – which was good, because with how hard Ruby’s pulse was still hammering in her ears, there would be no stop to the fidgeting anytime soon – and it only proved her point further when Amethyst didn’t  shift in her sleep at the jump in volume. “She sleeps like the dead. This one time–”

Cool fingers, their temperature bleeding through her top, stole Ruby’s breath away as they crept up over her back, splayed out over her ribs, and slowly, almost ticklishly in how delicate the touch was, tiptoed the length of her sides.

Ruby came to a jittery halt, staring blankly into the darkness of her room. Sure, they had just been doing things far less savory than a simple slide of hands over hips, but being touched was very different from touching. Vulnerability made itself known as Sapphire’s careful fingers curled into what little softness Ruby’s hips had to offer, and maybe Ruby even felt a little uneasy when Sapphire pulled her backwards with an unwavering determination, but it was undeniably _thrilling._

 “That’s good to know,” Sapphire hummed, the soothing vibrations of her voice reverberating in Ruby’s own chest. 

Sapphire’s grip relaxed, her fingers going slack again to retrace their steps, and caught under the hem of the tee shirt Ruby had thrown back on reluctantly (and inside-out, it seemed). The touch drew shivers to Ruby’s skin, all the more so as she dragged the fabric up, tracing Ruby’s stomach with the soft pads of her fingers, her nails skating along behind in a way that gave the gentle touch a kind of bite that brought a much welcomed heat to Ruby’s face. Ruby bit back the shaky giggles that wanted to spill from her lips, closing her eyes tight and concentrating not on the way Sapphire’s hands felt over her skin (ticklish, yes, but indulgent, and purposeful),  but instead on the coolness of the touch that only got more intense as Sapphire’s hands became bolder.

 “Cold,” Ruby tried to whisper, but the sudden surge of chills that wracked through her body as Sapphire’s hand flattened over her stomach, then slid up so her fingers just barely poked under the snug fabric of her sports bra, took control of her voice, morphing it into a sound closer to a whimper.

Warm breath puffed as quiet snicker into the back of Ruby’s neck, making the contrast between the two feelings even more stark. “You’re just going to have to get used to it.”

 Another hand came into play when Sapphire managed to burrow her free arm between Ruby’s neck and the flat pillow under her. Its cold digits moved under the neckline of Ruby’s top; now two sets of fingers splayed out on her, as if they were trying to encase her chest in an icy grip, slow her hammering heart that threatened a volume to wake even Amethyst, and trap her lungs in a freeze that would shut off her heavy sighs and hiccupped gasps.

If the plan really was to quiet her, it was having a very opposite effect.

When Sapphire’s lips pressed to the nape of Ruby’s neck, after what felt like minutes of chilly fingers seeking warmth from her steadily-heating skin, Ruby finally understood what all those romance novels were getting at – the ones she’d read alone, never intending to lie about having read, but also never intending to tell the whole truth about, either. She had wholeheartedly enjoyed them, and the sappy words on the pages had set butterflies free in her chest, and that maybe they were right in building her hope that one day, maybe, she could live the same kind of fairytale romance that would always fall into the characters’ open arms without fail.

Ruby had thought the wording was just part of the fantasy; describing a touch as _burning_ had been filed away in the ‘fiction’ part of ‘romantic fiction’ because the notion that a touch from the right person could make you _melt_ was wonderful, and worth fantasizing over, for sure, but utterly unrealistic, and even if Ruby was a dreamer, she knew well that setting your hopes too high would only ensure a fall.

Sapphire, though. Sapphire was beginning to make Ruby question everything she had ever categorized as fiction, and consider that those paperback novels may have been onto something.

Her lips on the back of Ruby’s neck were like the drag of newly-ungloved hands through frost on a windowpane, and worked down her skin in a stroke as satisfying as the crystal clear streaks left behind by warm fingers.

All the while, Sapphire’s hands never slowed. She carefully nudged Ruby’s sports bra under her top, keeping the shocking disparity in temperature between her hands and lips and Ruby’s body trapped.  The contrast was quickly overwhelming Ruby’s nerves, though they were trying hard to process through the feeling.

“See, my hands are getting a little warmer,” Sapphire chuckled just behind the shell of Ruby’s ear, her full lips brushing against Ruby’s skin and drawing a very obvious shiver and the faintest sound Ruby had probably made in her life from her lungs.

The little gasp of breath begged for a do-over, and compelled Sapphire to press her lips again to Ruby’s ear, which resulted in a tilt of the girl’s head, the startlingly loud grip of strong fingers into soft blankets, and a valiant effort in hushing a stubborn whimper.

“Shhh, Ruby,” Sapphire grinned into her partner’s neck, squeezing her in a hug that pulled their bodies a fraction of an inch closer; trying, as though they were not already lying nearly on top of each other in Ruby’s tiny bed, cramped even further by big puffy blankets and old, flattened pillows.

The tease was made even more obvious when Sapphire’s hands began to wander again, oh-so-innocent in their palming up over Ruby’s chest in a slow, deliberate feel through fabric under the guise of another squeezing hug. Sapphire punctuated the action with a carefully placed kiss at the base of Ruby’s neck.

“I bet _you_ couldn’t ‘shh’,” Ruby grumbled, though the pitch of her voice betrayed her huffy intentions.

Sapphire’s hands making their way back down over the heavy rise and fall of Ruby’s chest wasn’t doing any favors to steady her voice, though it was a favor to her in just about every other way. It caught her in a contradiction of impulses to both press back into Sapphire and to arch her back and push her chest into the girl’s hands, either too timid to really _squeeze_ or intentionally set on snapping the last thread of sanity and self-respect Ruby had left – the one that was keeping her voice just under a whisper and her hands out of her own pants.

Sapphire chose for her. She continued to languidly slider her hands down Ruby’s body, and came to rest in the shallow dip of her waist.

 “Are you under the impression that I’m loud?” Sapphire asked, and again the sound sent Ruby into a near fit of shivers.

“I’m under the impression that I might like to find out,” Ruby managed breathily, her pitch finally under control.

She left no time for the sharp-tongued comment she was sure was ready on Sapphire’s lips, and instead twisted in the girl’s loose hold until they were nose to nose, sharing breaths of warm air. Ruby pushed a chaste kiss on her lips, and when she pulled back the motion made an awkwardly loud, wet smack in the quiet of the room.

Sapphire was the first to snicker, but her laughter was too contagious for Ruby not to follow. Quickly she pulled the blankets up over their heads to muffle the sound, even if Amethyst had slept through fire alarms on more than one instance.

Their laughter quieted only once Ruby’s eyes adjusted, no longer confused by the bright electronic light of a phone screen shining on her desk in the darkness around it.

Sapphire was just looking at her, the smile on her lips the loveliest that Ruby had ever been given, one so mesmerizing that she was finding it hard to look away. Or squint, really.

“You know you’re pretty, don’t you?” Ruby murmured. Finally, now that Sapphire’s hands were no longer providing a distraction too great to conquer (even if she was more than willing to give herself over to the sensation again), her voice was steady.

If Sapphire were truly the goddess she looked like, carved from smoky marble with beautiful silver curls that cascaded in free wisps like mist off calm water, sloping curves to make the hills of earth itself seethe with jealousy, and an inviting smile that could lead a preacher into temptation, then Ruby had to be the unsuspecting mortal, ready to be turned to stone or burst into flame for daring to look at her so unabashed. If that were the case, she would go willingly.

 “You make me feel like I am.”

Ruby wasn’t aware of closing the gap between them, or her hands threading through Sapphire’s hair and pulling her close. Sapphire just felt so natural in her hands that it happened without a second thought.

They stayed like that, weaving themselves together as best they could with two sets of clumsy hands, one set to shaking by the icy grip of nervousness and the other by a desperation for contact.

At the first sound Sapphire made – a sharp, hushed little intake of breath brought out by a drag of teeth over her bottom lip – Ruby grinned. It was a reward that, in her humble opinion, had been much overdue for the quality of work she had been doing: hands rubbing over Sapphire’s hip, fingers deftly toying with the top band on the panties that had cut into her soft curves, begging to be slipped down and off so Ruby could kiss the reddened imprint their lacy fabric had forced into her skin, all the while holding her close and keeping their lips locked until slow, longing pullbacks for breath broke them apart.

“Shh, Sapphire,” Ruby giggled, a smile wide enough on her face to ruin their next kiss.

“This is ‘shh’,” Sapphire shot back, nipping at the fullest part of Ruby’s lip in a tease that did a lot more than make them even.

The jump in Ruby’s pulse was shared between them. Their chests were pressed so close that every heartbeat was felt together, only slightly out of sync – but it was all the more thrilling that she could pick out which little thump against her ribs was Sapphire’s.

Another jolt knocked against her chest, and Ruby had been so transfixed on the feeling of it alone that she hadn’t realized the cause.

Instantly, Ruby jerked her hand back, curling her fingers into her palm lest they extend and brush against the very softest part of Sapphire’s thigh again. Or, what she assumed was the softest, anyway; there was hardly an inch of smooth leg left untouched by the accidental sweep of her hand.

 “Oh, I-I’m sorry,” slipped out before Ruby could gauge the look on Sapphire’s face. It took the way the girl’s legs shifted slightly apart and another quiet gasp to realize that the accidental roaming of her hands was nothing to be sorry for at all.

“No, don’t be,” Sapphire cut in. Her voice was the same low, longing tone Ruby so loved to hear, only more urgent this time, less drawn out, and ended with the grip of cool fingers on Ruby’s wrist, guiding her hand until it lay flat on Sapphire’s thigh once again.

 Everything held still, completely motionless and unbreathing. Sapphire gave a little nudge to Ruby’s hand, prodding the girl’s blunt fingertips against rough lace with a huffy whine.

All at once the room went from shivering cold to stifling hot. When before the blankets pulled up over their heads had felt safe and secluded, Ruby suddenly found them suffocating. They trapped in every warm exhale and smothered every gasping inhale. It was worth fighting through, though.

Sapphire’s body bent to hers, going soft under Ruby’s tentative touch – hardly a brush of the tip of her finger down Sapphire’s center. It caused a reaction, like solid contact without any pretty lace or hesitation in the way would have. It begged the question: had Sapphire ever had anything like this? It was something Ruby should have probably asked a long while ago, instead of just assuming. There were a lot of things she needed to ask, honestly, but right now, with Sapphire gingerly spreading her legs and Amethyst asleep not even three feet from them, just wasn’t the time.

Sapphire nuzzled her face into the crook of Ruby’s neck, letting out a shaky sigh at the first sign of movement.

Ruby ran her finger down the center seam on Sapphire’s panties, slowly and with a tremulous breath of her own that was lost in Sapphire’s hair. It wasn’t until her next tentative motion, with a little more pressure behind it, that Ruby really _felt_ her.

She was warm, even through the numbing of fabric, and even more excitingly, she was _wet_. It was told by the way the clingy fabric slid over her with so much ease, how there was one particular spot warmer than the rest, and how she left Ruby’s fingertips slick through the little eyelets in the lace. 

Ruby had always been a very tactile person. She had to touch everything on the shelves in a store, and learned things like art and geometry and music faster than anyone in her class because they had a base in the physical world – had something she could put her hands on and _feel_. But never had she gotten this kind of personal satisfaction from a simple touch. With every careful stroke of her finger, fumbling only slightly because she had nothing more than the soft hitching breaths Sapphire whispered into her ear and past experience to let her know where and how to touch, it was like a muted and mirrored version of the touch was done to her in return.

With the brush of quivering fingers high on her leg and a dizzy, swimming heat slowly taking over her body, it seemed like Ruby was being set up for more than a resounding aftershock of shared pleasure.

Sapphire’s fingers nudged insistently between Ruby’s thighs, whining and grunting against Ruby’s neck for the effort it took. Ruby certainly wasn’t as soft as Sapphire, being composed of toned muscle on a form ideal for strength; her structure made it hard for Sapphire’s little hand to wiggle in, with no give of plush padding. Even once she made it, the trek was achieved with clumsily, shaking fingers that Ruby worried might be quivering from a nervous obligation to give back instead of the excited anticipation that had her own hands jittery.

The effort was short lived – short enough that Ruby didn’t have the time to tell Sapphire that there was no need. 

“Ruby,” Sapphire’s voice broke in a way reminiscent of Ruby’s own, but she was so elegant that the off-key sound didn’t seem out of place at all. “I can’t concentrate—I-I can’t do both.” She gave another misaligned rub of two fingers between Ruby’s legs.

The physicality of the action did next to nothing for her, but the thought and the effort behind the tiny brush of Sapphire’s fingers was enough to make Ruby’s own hands falter. It wasn’t exactly a feeling she was used to.

 “It’s okay!” Ruby replied, too loudly for their situation, but anything other than Sapphire – making her comfortable, making her feel safe and taken care of and _satisfied –_ had left her mind by this point.

 “I really couldn’t keep quiet anyway,” she continued, chuckling and kissing the fluffy curls on Sapphire’s forehead, whose hands had quickly gone slack at the consolation and mindlessly curled in the stretchy fabric of Ruby’s gym shorts. Ruby shifted closer, tucked a leg between Sapphire’s, and propped herself almost on top of the girl before murmuring back a breathy, “Just let me hear you, that’s enough.”

She worked at Sapphire, slow and gentle, and drew a symphony of gasps (and a very occasional muffled sound that Ruby hoped would be a moan if it weren’t for the need to stay quiet) from her. Her ego was stroked in how quickly Sapphire’s deep, steady breaths turn into short staccato puffs, how little effort it took to get the girl who had just minutes ago been melting into her touch like caramel to cling to her, muscles tense and shaking.

It was an outright stab to her swelling ego, however, and deflated her confidence as quickly as a needle to a balloon when Sapphire whined, a little noise of distress caught in the back of her throat, and shoved Ruby’s hand away. A cold panic ran through her in that split second – she must have hurt Sapphire, offended her, did something she didn’t want! She should have _asked,_ Ruby chastised herself, used her words and gotten permission to touch instead of taking a gentle nudge as an ‘okay’. She should have waited, should have just not done anything and waited for Sapphire–

The hurried brush of fabric over skin was deafening in Ruby’s panic, and the sound of a muffled but unrestrained moan snapped her attention back to the girl next to her who, to Ruby’s self-depreciated surprise, had not moved away at all, but scooted closer, leaning into Ruby hard enough that it was probably make breathing more difficult than it had become with how stuffy and warm their little blanket tent had become. 

It took Ruby a second, – a full second – of Sapphire pressing desperate kisses to the exposed skin around the neck of her top, quivering and gasping for air like she had ran a marathon, to realize what was going on.

She ran a careful touch down Sapphire’s arm, keeping the pressure light so the weight would not interfere with what Ruby, wide-eyed and flushed faced, assumed Sapphire was doing.

Ruby could feel the contracting muscles in Sapphire’s upper arm, and even more intensely in her forearm. She continued exploring down the limb as if she didn’t already know what this one hand was doing. The confirmation relieved Ruby’s panic at the situation, but added a twist to the knife already set deep into her self-esteem. It hurt that she couldn’t give Sapphire what she needed... but it was understandable, or that’s what she tried to convince herself. Ruby didn’t know Sapphire’s body like she did. Not yet, at the very least. It wasn’t exactly an off-putting notion, either, to have Sapphire touching herself while wrapped up in Ruby’s sheets.

Ruby let her hand shadow Sapphire’s, fighting through the stifling disbelief that this was real and actually happening, and took in the way her fingers moved – the speed, pressure, and placement. Trying to retain any of said information was a lost cause thanks to the steadily increasing speed of Sapphire’s pulse, beating almost in sync with the quick little twitching movements of her body.

In seconds, Sapphire as all but whimpering, her free hand balled into a fist in the collar of Ruby’s shirt; holding her close seemed to be the only thing that was keeping Sapphire’s voice in check, considering how her lips pressed to Ruby’s shoulder.

“Sapphire?” Ruby whispered, more quietly than she had before, because drowning out Sapphire’s voice would have been as disrespectful as muttering through a musician's solo. Sapphire gave an open mouthed kiss to Ruby’s collarbone as a push to go on. 

“Could I…?” Ruby breathed, laying her hand flat over Sapphire’s.

 The weight made all movement stop. Sapphire’s legs tensed, squeezing around the thigh Ruby had propped between them. After a moment, she composed herself enough to nod her head, her forehead rubbing against Ruby’s shoulder and ruffling her hair even more. Sapphire’s right hand wiggled free out from under Ruby’s, instantly seeking a tether on the waistband of the panties pushed halfway down her thighs.

Ruby knew enough about Sapphire to know that now wasn’t a time for hesitation, even if the chance at self-proclaimed redemption made everything in her scream to take her time and make sure everything was perfect and just as Sapphire would like it. As fate would have it, though, nothing about this situation was perfect, so a quick, clumsy, and, from the sound of it, much too delicate a touch would have to do. Judging by the way Sapphire’s entire body jerked on contact, it would seem she had left herself in a state of no return, where Ruby could have merely breathed on her and satisfied.

Sapphire felt like velvet – this was all Ruby had time to realize before the girl was shuddering, rocking her hips against Ruby’s hand with enough vigor to irritate the bedsprings, and biting into Ruby’s shoulder harder than what would normally be considered pleasurable (but she supposed pleasure must be something rated on a situational basis, because that definitely felt good). 

The ending to most things – movies, performances, and certainly anything involving intimacy – was what people tended to remember; even if Ruby hadn’t been the reason Sapphire had reached this point, she was literally single-handedly the one bringing her down. Sapphire wasn’t someone easily settled, as it were; she trembled like she was as cold as she had been five hours ago, and gasped shallowly into Ruby’s shoulder, clinging to her like she would tumble off the bed if she let go. Her voice caught in her throat in little hiccups, quieted by the bite to Ruby’s shoulder and the thick blankets over them.

It was all over so quickly – the only sign Ruby was given of finality was a rippling shudder from Sapphire, where her every movement following became an oversensitive twitch.

Ruby eased off perfectly. She stopped the movement of her fingers at that first switch between a pleasurable tremor and an overstimulated jerk (though she would have been happy to continue the action for _hours,_ even through the inevitable hand cramps), despite the two being hard to tell apart. Sapphire wasn’t expressive, and Ruby would certainly need more than one rushed, probably accidental and absolutely sub-par (on her end, not Sapphire’s) quicky.

Ruby’s hand wiggled out from between Sapphire’s legs, warm and slick, only once she was sure that one more touch would have been one too many. Begrudgingly she wiped her fingers on the bed sheets; Sapphire needed to be held, have her hair petted and her back stroked, and something in Ruby knew the girl would turn up her nose at being touched with a sticky-fingered hand.

Minutes passed before Sapphire was sated, fingers loosely woven into Ruby’s shirt collar, her breathing as slow and deep as if she were asleep, though the occasional oversensitive spasm of muscles told Ruby that she was still awake.

The moment was surreal, hazy in the warm glow of intimacy and stuffy from every gasping exhale being trapped under their blanket fort, but Ruby couldn’t say she minded, because every deep breath in smelled like _Sapphire,_ albeit a little stale.

The solace was broken by the slip of now only mildly cool fingers nudging under the elastic on Ruby’s gym shorts and pulling them down in jerky little tugs. They trembled over the subtle curve of Ruby’s side, pausing in their quest to undress her, at least halfway, to trace over the exposed skin that covered the sharp protrusion of her hipbone.

“Sapphire,” Ruby breathed, burying her face in the top of her partner’s fluffy hair and closing her eyes as she settled into the delicate touch. It was flattering that Sapphire was still so shaken – it did a lot to build back what having her hands pushed away had done to Ruby’s fragile confidence. “You don’t have to do this,” she continued, whispering into the stray curls atop Sapphire’s head, though she really, really hoped Sapphire would.

At the words, however, Sapphire’s hands stilled, recoiled from Ruby’s skin, and steadied. She leaned back in Ruby’s comforting hold around her to look at her with that blank, pursed lipped expression that Ruby still couldn’t quite read emotion into. She stared, the dark blue in her eyes a solid, sparkling black in the room’s darkness, like she was waiting for a “Really, it’s okay,” or other kind of affirmation that there was no obligation. 

There wasn’t – Ruby never wanted there to be – but this certainly wasn’t the first time she had found herself in this position. It drew out a complicated slurry of emotion… one that she still hadn’t managed to work through completely, but clear enough to understand that it wasn’t so much that Sapphire _wouldn’t_ touch her, should she ask, but that Ruby didn’t _want_ to that made her feel uneasy. Unrequited feelings, even partially, were never easy to get through.

“You don’t owe me anything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that update took about 2 months. Thank you all who stuck with me through it! 
> 
> December is always a hectic month in my family because there is a birthday literally every 2 days all month long, so I got very little done over the holiday break, sorry! Crossing my fingers that I can update more regularly now, but who knows with school starting back up. 
> 
> We will be back to solid plot come next chapter!  
> and, as always, a big huge thank you to Rhin for bete-ing!


	10. Freeze Over

The sudden stop to their impromptu sleepover had left Ruby anxious with thrill, jittery, and more than a little turned on, all three of which made sleep out of the question on their own, but together were more powerful than any caffeinated drink on the market.

But, by around dawn, Ruby’s mind had finally started to calm, lulled into the middle step between sleep and wakefulness by Sapphire’s slow, rhythmic breathing next to her, interjected by the occasional quiet snore or sleepy grumble of something incoherent. Ruby’s head was tucked under Sapphire’s chin; it seemed to be the only position by which she could escape suffocation from the puffy curls that had been pulled from the confines of her braid hours ago. It now shrouded Sapphire in a cloudy mass, diffusing the sunlight peeking through the slots in the blinds like morning fog. Even in sleep, it seemed, Ruby wasn’t permitted to see the girl’s face unobscured.

In the very same moment that Ruby had finally managed to doze off, face nuzzled into the cool touch of Sapphire’s neck to block out the nagging stripes of sunlight,  a loud, generic tinkling ringtone started to sing from somewhere near the foot of her bed.

Ruby tried to block it out, tucking her head under the blankets like she had done just a few hours ago to keep noise _in_ and forcing her eyes shut tighter, hoping the thing would turn itself off as she did with her own alarm every morning. But, when the jingle started over from the beginning, she couldn’t take it anymore. Every note plucked at her sleep deprived nerves, and it took all the courtesy her mother had tried to instill in her as a kid to not roll out of bed and rudely shut the noise off herself with no regard for the caller or the information they were trying to pass on. 

“Sapphire.” Her voice came out groggy and gravely, and she cleared her throat to try to fix it. She didn’t need Sapphire knowing just how much of a grumpy mess she could be in the mornings, or that she hadn’t gotten a second of sleep all night.

The call of Sapphire’s name hardly got a whine in response. Slender arms curled tighter around her, a cold hand pressing into the small of her back and the other into her pillow-flattened curls, and Ruby was pulled to the softness of her chest with a startling force. 

“It’ll stop,” she mumbled with eerie accuracy, for the moment the sleepy drawl of her voice trailed off, the song stopped. However, a second later it restarted, louder and with more vigor (if that was even possible).

It took this reprise to draw Sapphire out of the sleepy warmth they had cultivated and shared for the past six hours. She bolted upright as if the sound had gone from ignorable to startling, shooting out of the bed and tearing the blankets off, leaving Ruby to curl in on herself in the unwelcome morning chill. She was hot-natured, but the shock in temperature was still unpleasant. Ruby groaned and tucked her hands under the neckline of her own top to keep warmth in her fingers.

Her slow, bleary-eyed blinking made Sapphire’s frantic excavation for her phone look like it was in stop motion.  For the briefest of moments Sapphire was half bent over before her on hands and knees, fishing with both hands off the edge of the bed for her phone. She was a vision of dark lace and plush thighs under a borrowed sweater, threatening to pop up over the wide curve of her hips with just a fraction more coaxing, but the image was gone after the next slow blink that stung Ruby’s tired eyes. She wished this really were a film, so she could rewind and replay.

The catchy little jingle stopped as suddenly as it had started, filling the room instead with hushed, hurried whispers from Sapphire who, as it would seem, was very talented at faking the sleep out of her voice.

“Yes, Tuesday. No, no, I’ll be ready. I get out at five,” bounced around in the chilly quiet of Ruby’s dorm.

Ruby listened as intently as she could manage while drifting in and out of sleep, lulled by the calm, low hush of Sapphire’s voice, but startled back awake every so often by the frantic inflection in her tone.

“No, sorry, I was studying. My phone was on silent.” 

Some part of Ruby’s mind was forming a teasing scold to give Sapphire for lying so blatantly to whomever was on the other end. She had tagged the girl as honest to a fault. However, the portion of Ruby’s brain in charge of actually speaking the words had shut off to conserve her dwindling energy. “Lair, lair,” was all that made it out in the familiar sing-song before all power was cut.

______________________________

An empty room greeted Ruby when she finally awoke at three in the afternoon. She looked around, dazed, confused, and a little nauseous from sleeping in so late, even if she dearly needed the extra hours. Sapphire had vanished like a spectre without a word. She left no trace of her presence but a purple bruise on Ruby’s neck, and the perfectly folded borrowed sweater, set neatly at the foot of Ruby’s bed with a tiny torn edge of a notebook page laid on top. It was like a neon sign advertising that Sapphire, her beautiful soft skin, and the night’s events were not a dream; for once, the fantasy had become reality.

Ruby stared at the sweater, its colors forcing her to squint as she slowly chugged through the information it held. Sapphire had been here, they had shared a bed, shared warmth, touches, kisses, almost _everything_ , and now Sapphire was _gone._

It took another moment of dialup-speed processing for Ruby to take action, scrambling out from under the covers (which were somehow back on top of her, though the last thing she remembered was shivering from the lack of them) to snatch up the little scrap of printed notebook paper. Ruby had to hold it almost to her nose to read it in the dim winter afternoon light with her fuzzy, just-awoken vision. 

“Thank you,” it read, in letters skewed by an obvious press for time but in handwriting perfect enough to pass for type, “Good luck on your finals.”

 ________________________________________________________

Deja vu hit as hard and loud as the slam of the tiny lab room’s door behind her as Ruby stumbled in, ten minutes late on the dot, to a pair of glaring eyes and a finger held to lips painted with an unappealing shade of pink. The professor let out a hiss that was meant to hush her, but sounded more like a warning from some scaly reptile. She looked the part; Ruby wouldn’t have been surprised if she really were one of those horrible snake-person hybrids the looney side of the news was always going on about.

“Yeah, I’ll tell the door keep it down next time,” Ruby grumbled, taking her usual seat next to Sapphire at the front, who was just as breathtakingly beautiful as she had been the first time this scene had played out, if not more so.  To the point, almost, that it was distracting, because when Ruby glanced over at her, all she could see was Sapphire writhing on her dingy dorm room sheets, flushed-faced and hair messed around her like a silk tapestry.

The loud rip of velcro as Ruby dug a pencil out from her bag tried to sober her thoughts, as well as cause a resounding wave of sniffles, throat-clearing, and shifting in seats that slowly subsided into nothing more than the dry scratch of pencil on Scantron paper.

Apparently, as Ruby found out after the professor’s unsympathetic call of, “Ten minutes more,” time flies when you aren’t struggling through a thick swamp of exam-induced anxiety, squinting at lines of fine-printed text that jumble themselves into nonsensical mush, read over and _over_ again until you skip the question entirely because you have now read the same line six times in a row. When you are sure and calm and confident in the answers, two hours feels like hardly twenty minutes. That did not mean that Ruby was done early, however.

Not like Sapphire, who rose to the ten minute call as if it were a demand to turn in the exam.

The click of the girl’s heels on the hardwood lecture hall floor set Ruby’s pace like a metronome, and she went blazing through the last few questions on her first instinct response (all of which happened to be C, but there was no time to go back and rethink things when the last glimpse of silvery blonde was slipping soundlessly, to Ruby’s amazement and mild envy, through the narrowly open doors).

Ruby shoved her chair back from the desk with a horrible squeal of heavy plastic on wood that made the whole class cringe. Her Scantron sheet was tossed on top of Sapphire’s with a quick and insincere whisper of, “Thanks for the semester,” before she dashed out of the room, taking the few steps up to the door two at a time.

The hinges squeaked loudly as she flung the door wide open, then slowly stuttered to a solid clash as it shut behind her.

“Sapphire?” Ruby called into the echoey hall, looking for any trace of the girl. The squeal of her sneakers resounded in the dead quiet of an educational building during exams, but so did the, “Shhh,” that answered her.

“You’re yelling,” Sapphire said with a wince, her shoulders stiffening as she halted in the building’s decorated entry way.

“I was worried I wouldn’t catch you in time!” Ruby whispered excitedly, practically skipping over to Sapphire with the way she had to pick up her feet to avoid another squeal of rubber on tile.

“You have my number, Ruby,” Sapphire stated, and it must have been the whispering that sucked the good natured humor out of her words, Ruby thought.

“Okay, but,” Ruby reached for the hand hanging limp at Sapphire’s side, brushing against the girl’s hip with the movement and sending the neatly pressed pleats of her skirt swaying, “I wanted to give you my thanks in person.” Ruby waited with a grin, ready for the softest of giggles, or the pretty way Sapphire’s lips tugged into a smile, but received nothing.

“You know, for tutoring me this semester,” Ruby explained, though doing so was only making her feel more awkward. It was like the exam anxiety had simply been delayed, not conquered altogether. “And for folding my sweater, you didn’t need to do that. A-actually, for last night in general. You were–”

A dull buzz, muffled enough to be mute in any other situation than the stark silence around them, prompted Sapphire to cut her off. “I have to go,” was all she gave, curling her fingers out of Ruby’s warm hand.

Ruby let go without hesitation. “Right now?” she asked with a lighthearted but unsure tone to her question, which was answered by a slim-fingered hand pulling on the big brass handle of the main entrance. 

“Uh, what are you doing over the break?” Ruby asked quickly, stepping forward to open the door for Sapphire (more to slow her down than to be polite). “Or, um, are you free Friday?”

The offer piqued Sapphire’s interest, made obvious in the way her long, hurried strides shortened to a shuffle to kept Ruby close. Her lips parted, showing a hint of perfectly straight teeth behind dark lips, but the inhale to speak was stunted into a quiet gasp when the same tinkling sound Ruby had been so rudely awoken to began, almost deafeningly loud in the comparative quiet.

“I have to _go,_ Ruby,” Sapphire said, any trace of a smile that may have been forming on her face wiped clean with a chilling gust of winter wind.

“Oh, okay!” Ruby’s voice cracked on the overcompensated cheer that came out. It felt like her insides had turned to heavy stone, sinking in her gut and leaving a cold, hollow feeling to make its home in her chest. This really did feel like the first day of the semester all over again. “I’ll just text you the details, then.”

Sapphire nodded, maybe, or it could have been just a duck of her head to shield her face from the icy and unrelenting breeze.  Ruby decided, as Sapphire picked up the pace to something faster than even her normal stride, that it must have been an affirmation, paired with a dull, lifeless hum that could have just as easily been the wind through the trees.

“It’s the finals for the season, so it’s kinda a big thing…” Ruby called after her, voice dying out as a sickly cold feeling took hold of her throat. It crept its way up her neck to sit and nag like a sore bruise in the back of her mind.

 ________________________________________________

 “You did text the right number, right?” Amethyst asked, uninterested as ever, but a little concerned. Ruby’s pacing was threatening to evolve into full on lap-running if her nerves continued to rise at their current pace. Even if that would serve as a fair warm up, they didn’t need another noise complaint from the rooms under them. Or above, or across the hall.   

“Yes!” Ruby barked back, voice breaking again and forcing her to clear her throat. Maybe she was getting the flu. Some higher power seemed to have it out for her today, so it would only make sense. 

“Hey, it’s a legitimate question,” Amethyst huffed, closing her eyes so Ruby wouldn’t see the overdramatic roll that followed. “You’ve done that before.” 

Dark eyes followed Ruby for another few laps, watching her pulling through knots in her curls and grumble under her breath about something that Amethyst knew by now not to try to make sense of. It would lead her nowhere but to a bottle of painkillers to fight off the inevitable headache.

 “We gotta get headed that way, champ,” Amethyst said with a regretful sigh after watching Ruby jog another few laps. “I’ll watch your phone like a hawk, okay?” she added, smiling reassuringly as Ruby _stared,_ confused and a little glazed over. “She’s gonna be there. Sapphire’s never missed a match before.” Amethyst clapped Ruby hard enough on her back to shake her sturdy stance, adding in a far less reassuring tone, “I think she kinda gets off to it, honestly.”

 _________________________

 Ruby’s nerves were strung up tight – tighter than the sore muscles in her shoulders from sharing a twin sized bed with someone who sprawled out like they were used to a queen all to themselves, tighter than the pull of red silk across her forehead that she had deemed a good luck charm (but might end up being reclassified as a memento with how things were going).

Even with the electronic hum of the huge gas generator that powered the overly-bright construction lights as background noise, and the cheer of the crowd that was equal parts frat boy and general delinquent, Ruby’s mind wasn’t in this. Maybe it had always been like this, she thought, with just the draw of consistent attention and praise keeping her coming back, and Sapphire’s attention had just made the adoration of drunk strangers lose its luster.  It was the only explanation for how utterly dull she was about the whole prospect of the event. It wasn’t like this little hobby was taking her anywhere in life, anyway.

Ruby fiddled with the ends of the scarf around her head as she paced, feet sinking into the muddy slush of ice and gravel, trying to tie the ends into a bow, one like Sapphire had done with big puffy loops and perfectly even tails. Ruby’s came out lopsided, floppy, flat, and probably sillier-looking than just a knot.  In the end it fell undone during the match. 

Amethyst was quick to run to Ruby afterwards, helping her over the bungie cord ropes and grabbing her by the shoulders, effectively taking up her entire field of vision with how close they were standing. It was as obviously a ploy to distract her as the ear splitting grin she was giving, yelling congratulations over the crowd as if her volume alone would knock Ruby’s mind back into full action and stop the cycling realization that it was _only_ Amethyst giving her praise. 

It didn’t, and nothing else did for nearly the entire walk home. 

Ruby had always struggled with feeling _too much._ It was cause for nearly every issue in her life, from getting suspended enough in senior year (for reasons ranging from running her mouth at faculty to decking a kid square in the face, all of which were quite deserved) that she couldn’t graduate on schedule, to getting teary-eyed in the dentist’s waiting room over an animal shelter ad on TV. She held enough compassion and fury and everything in between that it was a wonder she could feel as little as she felt at this moment. Honestly, all Ruby felt was tired. A little cold from the night air, maybe, but nothing worth complaining about.

Amethyst retold her victory like it was the Odyssey, but the only thing Ruby was listening to was the faint scuffling of her own feet dragging over the concrete, studying the way one foot turned out a bit more than the other. She let her friend’s voice fade into background noise until a literal shock was sent through her body. Or, that’s what Ruby’s nerves registered it as; a sharp, biting pain that was over in a flash, when in reality it was only a cell phone vibration sent from her back pocket.

She yanked it out, getting tangled up in her jacket sleeves to such intensity that she scarcely avoided flinging the little phone down the sidewalk like a skipping stone. She caught it mid-fall with a clap of both hands together like someone smushing a fly, and held the obnoxiously bright screen to her face.

_“I’m sorry. I won’t be able to make it.”_

As anticlimactic as the message was, it made every emotion Ruby should have been feeling all through the match – all through the walk there and back – return with a vengeance.

“It’s fine,” Ruby’s stubby fingers typed back, with such force that they made pattering sounds across the screen and caused little pressure bubbles to form under the screen protector. “I won without you.”

 _____________________________________________

Ruby was on the roof when the next sign of life from Sapphire came her way, stringing up icicle lights over her dad’s porch while Amethyst sat next to her, a bag of peppermint candies in one hand and Christmas light clips in the other. More than once she had gotten the two confused, which was a hazard for them both.

Ruby had tried to pay the buzz no mind; both Amethyst and her father had suggested such tactics with warm smiles and pats on the back, offering vague, unhelpful, but kind statements like, “Women, am I right?” along with hot chocolate. Though the reflex was still there to snatch up her phone from where it sat, discarded onto the shingles from her pocket because skinny jeans, bulky cell phones, and crawling on all fours sixteen feet above the ground, even when padded with a reasonable layer of slushy old snow didn’t mix well, Ruby left it alone.

“Do you want me to get that?” Amethyst asked after a crunch on a peppermint candy that made Ruby’s skin prickle.

“It’s probably nothing,” Ruby grumbled, slapping the next light hook onto the siding hard enough to break the clip off. She thrust her hand in Amethyst’s direction wordlessly for another. 

 “Yeah, it was just another Big Donut coupon,” Amethyst sighed after the 8-bit ding that signified Ruby’s phone being unlocked. How the girl had figured out her passcode was a mystery, but not a surprise.  “They’re really trying to make Christmas donuts a new tradition.” She handed Ruby another clip, but only after her arm had started to ache from holding it out for so long.  “Gingerbread sounds like a super gross flavor.”

 _________________

Only once they were both down on relatively solid ground did they come to notice that they hadn’t checked the lights prior to hanging them. The black gap, starting just off center of the front door, was the final blow. 

The inability to feel anything other than simply _being_ finally spread to Ruby physically, forcing her to plop down into the soggy snow and ice mixture that made the grass of her childhood home’s yard crunchy, but still wet enough to soak through her jeans. It started to make her skin go somewhere between painfully cold and numb, which was about how she felt on the inside, too.

“I kinda like it!” Amethyst said after an apprehensive glance to Ruby, making a viewfinder with her fingers at the building to mock an artist. “Makes a statement, you know? Real artsy. I bet we can sell it as a metaphor. Like how Christmas had been taken over by greed for material things—“

“Just tell me that coupon was something good, like buy one, get one free,” Ruby cut her off, shoving both hands into the crunchy slush to push herself to her feet again. She didn’t even have it in her anymore to regret plopping into the show in the first place, only to flick off the remnants that clung to her now damp clothing. It was just another tally mark to add to the list of things that had gone horribly wrong this year, not that Ruby had anywhere enough energy to write it all out. “I want enough of those new cranberry jelly filled ones that my biggest problem is gonna be how to eat them all before they get all weird and stale.”

Amethyst took a minute to reply, chuckling under her breath about how it looked a bit like Ruby had wet her pants, before avoiding eye contact to speak. “I’ll cover for all you can eat, but that message wasn’t from the Big Donut, bud.”

________________________________

_“I’m sorry.”_

The two words had never been more infuriating in Ruby’s entire life. She had typed about fifteen different messages back, all pages long, but somehow her fingers always landed on the delete button – by mistake or the will of whatever curse she felt had been plaguing her, she didn’t know – but constantly jumping the gap between being angry and hurt did make it difficult to settle on a reply. She wanted a good comeback, something witty and with enough bite to let Sapphire feel at least a third as bad as Ruby had been feeling, but, “I’m sorry” didn’t give her a lot to work with. After a half hour, in which Ruby contemplated asking for the aid of Amethyst’s temper and sharp tongue, she settled for something short and sweet.

 “It doesn’t feel like it.”

As soon as it showed up on the screen, Sapphire had replied.

_“I really am.”_

 Another answer sparse for sincerity, though through text it was always hard to convey emotion. Ruby wasn’t in the mood to give her the benefit of the doubt.  She wasn’t in the mood for anything, especially whatever fight she could feel building in her chest, sitting under her skin like hot coals while a tension headache set in hard and fast. She blamed the pain for her watering eyes.

“You need to figure out who you are.” Ruby typed up her reply fast enough and with enough irritation that the occasional typo slipped in, filled with passive-aggression and sarcasm only because actual anger was difficult to show through writing, though she grumbled every word under her breath for personal satisfaction. “You can’t just keep me around when you feel like it and blow me off when you don’t. I’ve dealt with enough of this, and I should have known you’d be the same. You think you’re so much better than me, but—“

Ruby’s phone rang, interrupting her building tirade before she could hit send with a pop-up of a pretty candid picture she had snapped of Sapphire mid-semester, when everything had been great and only getting better, instead of now, when things were going bad and getting worse. Everything attractive about the image only served to make Ruby’s anger grow hotter.

 _Reject_ was hit before a second ring, followed by a series of furious dull clacks on Ruby’s screen; “Don’t call me.”

Enough time passed that Ruby knew her message had been read before it rang again. In her anger and against her better judgement, which had blown out the window altogether the moment she had snatched her phone back from Amethyst and bolted to her old room almost an hour ago, Ruby answered.

“Can you not read?” she growled, hopping to her feet and taking the first step of many around the perimeter of her room, “I thought you were supposed to be smart, or maybe you’re just inconsiderate, but—“

An odd, muffled hiccupping sound came through the speaker, followed by a shaky inhale of breath, and a whispered, “Ruby.”

The anger evaporated like steam from Ruby’s veins and she stopped everything – stopped speaking, stopped pacing, stopped breathing, though only for a moment.

“S-Sapphire?”  Ruby’s voice caught in her throat in a similar manner.

The girl was upset, and in the beginning that was what Ruby wanted, but maybe not to this extent. Hearing it in her voice – how she was choking on her own words, fumbling to get them out around what sounded like desperation to keep their conversation secret – wasn’t really part of the plan. Actually, Ruby _had_ no plan, other than make Sapphire sorry. It seemed like she accomplished that, at least.

“I’m s-so sorry,” Sapphire whispered on an inhale. Her words were almost indiscernible over how choked up she sounded. “My sisters came to get me early, and I– they’re so nosy. I couldn’t tell you _anything e_ verything I say they use against me–”

Certainly, Ruby didn’t feel numb anymore. It was like her emotions had experienced lag, and now were cycling at triple speed through everything she should have been feeling and processing over the break. None of what she was feeling was anger anymore, at least, not at Sapphire. She had plenty reserved for herself, though. “I didn’t know, I just thought–”

Ruby’s experience with fights of a non-psychical nature were nothing like this. She had expected her anger to be received with more anger; fight fire with fire, as they say. That’s how it was with Amethyst, with her family, and with every little spat she had had with failed partners and acquaintances to date. She should have known it would be different with Sapphire. _Everything_ was different with Sapphire. 

“I don’t even know who I am anymore, Ruby,” cut her off, coming so out rushed that Sapphire’s normally articulate words slurred together, “I thought I had everything figured out, and then _you_ came along and I just– it’s like I disappeared.”

On the other end of the line,  a faint voice played through, calling Sapphire’s name with a tone much higher than hers, sounding just as much concerned as stern.

 “I can’t _do_ this, Ruby,” was whispered next before what sounded like static (but was likely a shower faucet judging from the lack of distortion to the call) muffled her out. 

“No, no, no, Sapphire, it’s okay!” Ruby nearly shouted through the receiver. She snatched one of the stuffed animals off her bed when she passed it on her lap of the room, occupying her hands with flapping the critter’s little feet about, making the poor ratty creature look as flustered as she was. “You’re great, you’ve always been great. I was mean, I just wanted to be mad without knowing your side of things, and I shouldn’t have–”

“ _I_ shouldn’t have,”  Sapphire jumped in, a little less shaky than before, but it only lasted for a moment. “This isn’t fair to you.” She sniffed hard on the other end, then tried to take in a breath.

“We can slow things down!” Ruby offered frantically, gripping the stuffed animal with enough force to strangle it if it were real. “I-I know it’s a lot, but I–”  Ruby stopped to breathe before replying quietly, “I just don’t want to ruin this.”  She found herself plopped down onto her old bed, no longer needing the energy outlet of walking laps of her room, because very suddenly things were aligning in her mind. Maybe, if she stepped back from how wronged she felt by this situation and misunderstanding, she had brought the whole thing on herself. “I-I ruin so much stuff like this,” she mumbled, finally realizing just how tired she was. There was no energy left to even kick her feet over the edge of her bed, hardly enough to keep herself sitting up. “I _really_ like you, Sapphire.” She felt like she was in first grade, fiddling with her thumbs and admitting her feelings around a stuffy nose, as if she didn’t wear her heart on her sleeve already.

There was silence for a good while, broken momentarily by sniffles and thick swallows around a tear-swollen throat, before Sapphire spoke. There was no comment on what Ruby had said, but the tone in Sapphire’s voice was enough to know it had been heard.

“You can’t cry, Ruby. _I’m_ crying.” It came out soft-hearted and with a choked giggle behind it that made Ruby smile hard enough to hurt.  “You need to wait your turn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School and general laziness delayed the chapter, you all know the drill by now, but a serious thank you to sticking with me. I'm still just so overwhelmed by the positive feedback I've been receiving. You guys have no idea how much I appreciate it. 
> 
> I believe next chapter is going to have the part I've been super excited to write, so maybe it'll come faster?  
> and as always, i huge thank you to Rhinocio for beta-ing for me!


	11. Star Struck

Ruby’s second semester was nothing like her first. It was becoming that restart she had been hoping for – another chance to roll the dice and, fingers crossed, not see utter garbage. It started out wonderfully, with classes she had a firm grasp on and double the friends of her first semester, even if double was only two. It was a vast improvement, and improving more and more by the second as the deep blue SUV rolled up to the campus’ science building parking lot. 

Sapphire had told her to wait, to act  _ casual,  _ like she was coincidentally loitering fifteen minutes early outside the building’s doors with no one else around, but that was  _ hard.  _ Winter break seemed like it spanned a lifetime, even though they had called daily, their phone conversations drowned out from nosy family members by Sapphire faking sixty minute showers. Really, she was just running up the water bill. 

Ruby stopped and stared when the sound of car doors opening pulled her focus, hitting pause on her signature pattery pacing and fumbling in hoodie pockets for lint to occupy her hands.  

Only Sapphire could make sliding down out of an elevated car elegant. With an audible clack of her heels on the asphalt and a brush of hands over polished cotton to straighten her skirt, in one dazzling moment, Sapphire was before her again, only to be abruptly obscured by what Ruby would have assumed were life sized magazine cut-outs were they not each in turn bending down to give Sapphire a hug goodbye or a kiss on the cheek. Each said a few words that Ruby, from her nervous distance down the walkway, couldn’t hear, before fixing Sapphire’s necklace, or flattening the top of her hair with their long, spindly fingers. 

Where she stood at hardly over five feet, pushing onto the tips of her toes was doing nothing to help Ruby see around the little crowd, so she took her pacing in an arch on the grass, with the hope that going wide would move her field of vision past the tall women crowding around Sapphire as if she were jewelry in a case. On her second look, which was only a momentary blur between the hands combing through Sapphire’s hair, the butterflies in Ruby’s stomach dropped like flies; the girl looked nothing short of miserable. It was in her stance – stiff and upright as a pillar, hands held at her sides in a way that was anything but relaxed, and her closed fingers pressing wrinkles into the hem of her skirt. The way her mouth moved was practiced and worn out when she spoke, offering a cold, “Thank you,” as her siblings (if one was her mother, Ruby couldn’t tell which) nitpicked her appearance (out of goodwill, Ruby knew, but still). The girl was only headed off to class, not preparing to sit for hours for an oil painting.  

“Be good, Sapphire,”  Ruby heard faintly, in a voice far higher than Sapphire’s, but one that carried the same tone, smooth as ice over a pond. Ruby crept closer subconsciously; her legs had a tendency to carry her against her better judgement. 

“I will.” Ruby’s hands flexed in her pockets, quick and stiff, as if she were shocked with a jolt of electricity. The tone of Sapphire’s voice, cold and flat as the day they met, was heartbreaking after how used Ruby had become to the sound of her laughter. Every nerve in her body itch to fix it. She knew she could. 

“Don’t let your grades slip,” a different voice from the first, sounding like an even grosser pitch alteration of Sapphire’s added,  as if Sapphire would ever make anything less than full marks. Well, with that one exception.  

“I won’t.” 

It was a blessing when Sapphire finally waved them off by the curb – though that was only after another minute of plucking imperfections off of her when Ruby saw none at all, and more short answer interrogation. Sapphire hardly moved her figure in the gesture, staying in the same mechanical pose for a good few seconds even after the car had turned the corner and left behind a thick smell of exhaust to hang heavy in the foggy air. Even that had started to fade before Sapphire turned, but when she did, she ran. 

(Really, it was more of a jog with how Sapphire’s steps were stunted by her shoes, but it still played out like a dramatic reunion in a prime-time soap opera.)

Ruby had expected a tight hug – a tender kiss, maybe, if Sapphire was feeling daring and the sidewalk wasn’t crowded with onlookers – but the girl came at her full force, whapping her hard in the back with the heavy book bag thrown over her wrist and throwing her arms around Ruby’s shoulders with enough momentum to send them both stumbling backwards. 

“Oh, I missed you,” Sapphire breathed, the sigh so contented that it was hard to believe the same lips now plastering Ruby’s flushed cheeks in kisses were just moments ago set into a heavy, unmovable frown. 

“Not as much as I missed you,” Ruby giggled, giving Sapphire a squeeze around the middle snug enough to sweep her feet off the concrete with a surprised little, “Oh!”

“I’m not lettin’ you go again, either,” Ruby grinned, leaning back a little to have a better hold around Sapphire’s waist and taking a few waddling steps in the direction of the building’s doors, as if she were a toddler and Sapphire the family cat.

“As much as I’d love to,” Sapphire wheezed through a fit of breathy giggles as Ruby nearly squeezed the air right from her lungs, “I think we’d make a scene, going in fused together like this.” 

Ruby made it all the way to the building’s stone steps before admitting defeat, letting Sapphire down with a stiff plop. 

“Well, I’m not really worried about the stares,” Ruby shrugged, gesturing with her head to the building’s entrance. She was willing to let Sapphire  _ down,  _ but not let her  _ go _ , and her arms stayed looped tightly around her. “Just the _stairs_.” A self-satisfied grin started to tug at the corners of Ruby’s mouth, even before the little snort of laughter came in response.

_____________________________

 

“You sing, don’cha?” 

Both Ruby and Sapphire looked up from their note studying, which was more Sapphire reviewing under her breath and Ruby dozing on her shoulder, sometimes listening, sometimes only hearing. 

“Yeah, in the shower,” Ruby answered, one eyebrow quirked up in confusion (though mostly hidden under the mass of her curls) at Amethyst’s sudden interruption. They weren’t on a date exactly, but snuggling together on Ruby’s bed didn’t seem like the kind of thing that would need a Do Not Disturb sign. It was common sense. She was trying to include Amethyst more after last semester’s little fiasco, or at least not push her away so much, but sometimes she made it difficult. They hadn’t even been back together for a week yet. 

“No,  _ Sapphire,”  _ Amethyst said with a roll of her eyes, swiveling in her desk chair to face them but overshooting the mark.  “I’ve got a friend who needs an opener. Had a last minute drop out and all that.” 

“And I’m just outta the running, huh?” Ruby joked, sticking out her foot and giving the back of Amethyst’s chair a good kick, doubling the speed of her rotation. 

“Obviously. We need someone  _ good _ , and all you talk about is how  _ good  _ she is.”  Amethyst stuck out her hands to stop herself on the desk, catching Ruby’s eye in a sly, knowing look that only made Ruby scowl and break eye contact. 

“Anyway, the pay’s shit,” Amethyst continued, saving her roommate the embarrassment of pressing the implied subject further, “But you’d get whatever tips you make, plus snuck into a bar that doesn’t ID past the door, so–” 

“I-I’d love to!” Sapphire blurted out, leaning forward to grip the edge of Ruby’s bedframe before checking both her volume and excitement and sitting back down, though it was too late to save her notebook from sliding off her lap and onto the floor, and her pen from rolling under the bed to be likely lost forever.  

 

––––––––––––––––

 

“It smells like smoke,” Ruby grumbled, waving a wide-palmed hand in front of her face as if that alone was enough to cut through the thick smog condensing at her level. Life was rough when the top of your head was even with most people’s chins. 

“Of course it does, it’s a bar, Ruby.” Sapphire seemed bothered by none of it, though Ruby assumed it would bother her most of all. Even if Ruby knew better by now, Sapphire always seemed so delicate; less like the jewel she was named for and more like the pretty nightshade flowers that shared it. (But she supposed that those, too, had a bit of bite to them.) 

Despite the scent, Sapphire passed the threshold without any hesitation other than to grab Ruby’s hand and pull her along. 

“You look like you need a drink, hon.” 

Ruby knew it would happen. From the moment Amethyst said the word “bar” in her description of the venue, she knew, but that didn’t mean she expected it so quickly. She never took Sapphire’s beauty for granted, but maybe she underestimated it this time. 

“Seriously?” Ruby rolled her eyes, overdramatic in the hopes the source of the call might see, “The door hasn’t even shut.” She grumbled from her place behind Sapphire, bristling like an angry cat and tightening her grip on Sapphire’s hand, ready to lead her away if only she could make a path for the two of them in the maze of chairs, waitresses, and patrons. 

Ruby’s little performance made Sapphire giggle. She hid it behind her free hand and played it off as a cough, but it still made her, “No, thank you,” a lot less firm than it needed to be, even with the reassuring squeeze she gave Ruby’s hand and the obvious sway to her hair as she scanned the room for where they needed to be. Come to think of it, Ruby didn’t know where that was, exactly. 

“C’mon. Just one, whatever you’d like.” 

The man with a widow’s peak to challenge a politician was getting sleazier by the second. He took another sip out of a bottle of generic pale beer. Who honestly ordered Bud Light at a bar and got red-faced over it? Apparently this beanpole of a man, and the one to both his left and right. As Ruby looked around for the backstage entrance, or literally anywhere but here, she was quickly realizing this was a pick-your-poison kind of event. This man, though, with his beady eyes rolling down Sapphire’s legs like jet black marbles, his greasy blond hair (god, Ruby hoped he wasn’t old enough for that color to be white – the thought made her skin crawl) swept back with too much gel, and his breath reeking of cheap alcohol (or maybe that was just the air), was likely the worst of them all. 

“She said no,” Ruby growled from over Sapphire’s shoulder, pushing up on her tiptoes to seem a little more intimidating. “With an attitude like yours, you better get used to rejection,  _ buddy _ .” It was times like these, when she needed to be firm and maybe even a little threatening, that she hated her voice. The louder she got, the closer she sounded to someone squeezing the air out of a kitten. It was why her and Amethyst were such a killer tag team. With the girl’s sharp tongue and Ruby’s brawn to back it up, they were a right set of hooligans.  

“Is your  _ girlfriend  _ getting jealous?” the man joked, letting Ruby’s little threat roll off him like the condensation dripping down his beer. He downed the rest of his bottle and raised his creepy long-fingered hand to wave a waitress over for another. 

“Come on, Ruby.” Sapphire’s tone had changed completely, mimicking the jaded misery of a few weeks prior as she took Ruby’s hand in hers to lead them through the crowd. It put the man off, and that was the most Ruby could ask for at this point. Everywhere Ruby looked she was met with greedy eyes cast just short of her, and a readiness to use a pickup line far less tasteful than this man’s.  

“You’re not foolin’—” Ruby watched the man’s beady little eyes flick down to their clasped hands before something between a laugh and a hacking cough bubbled up from his throat. Ruby found herself wishing he would choke on it. 

“Oh, C’mon. You’re too pretty, you don’t look the part—” he stopped mid-babble to place what was probably at least his eighth order, “Another beer and a cosmo for the lady,” before returning with, “Your little bodyguard, on the other hand–” before a fit of raspy chuckling overtook him, as if his unfinished sentences were the most thought-out, witty joke ever told on the planet.  

Sapphire made a kind of grimace Ruby had never seen before – a downward turn to her lips and a bare of her teeth before she scoffed over the man’s raspy laughter, “Tell my manager I’m not in uniform, then.” Sapphire gave a harsh tug to Ruby’s hand before she could say, or, more likely, _do_ anything. 

It was a lot more satisfying when Sapphire’s cold shoulder was turned towards someone else.

Ruby jogged after her, tangling herself in a combination of her own clumsy feet and chair legs as Sapphire plowed her way through the blockages, be them furniture of human, with no apology.  

“Well, uh,” Ruby forced a laugh, yelling over the banter and low music that filled the place as densely as the cigarette smoke, “This was really cool, but maybe we should—“ Sapphire’s hand gripped Ruby’s in a pulse of strength that made her wince.

“No.” She didn’t even turn her head, only continued to weave them closer and closer to the back wall. It was covered in ‘art work’, or, more realistically, novelty garbage: the head from a vintage Frybo costume; an old ad for those little GALS toys Ruby used to impulsively collect; a poster for Dogcopter: The Movie. “I want to do this, and you said you would support me.” 

“I did, and I will!” Ruby answered, laying her free hand over the top of Sapphire’s, using her as a reason to not try and find any other distracting momentos the place might have decorating it’s walls. She needed to seem serious.  “But don’t you think you’re too good for this—?”

“ _ So,"  _ Sapphire lead Ruby thankfully away from the back wall and gave her a little push towards an empty table front and center of the little raised platform that must have been what was used for a stage, “Support me.” 

Ruby sat uncomfortably in the first two rows of tables, sipping in evenly timed increments from a soda can that was sweating nearly as badly as her hands were. It worked in her favor; no one could tell how uncomfortable she was. 

On one hand, Sapphie was surely almost ready to go on. She had slipped through a little black curtained door in the far corner almost fifteen minutes ago, and the stage had now been decorated with a tiny mic stand and a few musicians in the corner. People were starting to gather towards the back of the building as if they could sense Ruby’s anticipation. 

On the other hand, though, Ruby had been feeling eyes boring into the back of her head for that whole fifteen minutes, and they were putting her on edge, because how was she supposed to tell if they were glares for her occasional cough into a napkin or just curious glances? She just hoped none of them belonged to that pale man from before. The thought sent a shiver down her spine. 

All the while that she sat, her grip grew slowly tighter on the can of soda until finally, with a pop and gush of syrupy drink that nearly startled her backwards out of her chair, it dented in. There wasn’t much left in the can after, but it still had Ruby cursing under her breath as she mopped it up as best she could with the little coaster napkin. The thing was sopping wet, and just pushing the rest of the liquid around the scratched varnish of the table top. With a sigh she gave in, and looked up to a stage lit like dim city lights and a girl, stiff but calm, combing her fingers through her hair. 

The yellowing lights slid down her curls like comet tails, her lips a glossy red beneath them, and very suddenly Ruby longed to lay her head in Sapphire’s lap like she had done what felt like eons ago, itchy tulle underskirt and staticy nylon tights be damned, and just  _ look. _ Look up under her bangs at the pretty shades of blue Sapphire liked to keep shadows on, marvel at her perfect flaws and at how gorgeous she was, and this time have the nerve to tell her she thought so, even if lacking the words to do it properly. 

Ruby stared until the drip of cold soda off the table’s edge woke her up. The tap on the mic a second later would have done it, too. 

She anticipated Sapphire introducing herself,  once the barman was done lowering the stand for her, of course, but she only tapped her finger to the mic a second time before taking in a deep breath.

Sapphire sang, and it reminded Ruby of church. Like the grand stone cathedrals downtown, with stained glass windows that painted the sunlight brighter than the murals inside, and spires that almost touched the clouds. It reminded her of sitting in the pews holding her mother’s hand while the choir sung, and thinking angels just  _ had to _ be real, because how could anything sound so beautiful and be from the same world as blaring car alarms and skipping records? Sapphire alone could make her believe in all of that again.

Her voice rang out like the space could seat hundreds, when really they were probably pushing the fire limit with forty. The sound echoed against the walls as if they weren’t tacky wood paneling, but white marble instead. She made the beer smell like wine and the smoke like incense, and it was only the first note.  

Ruby didn’t even notice the band had started to play until halfway in. Sapphire could have done just fine without them. 

When it ended, it was far too soon. Her soft, “Thank you,” said close to the mic got lost in the applause and cheers (mostly whistling and hollering from men) as she held her dress to hop down off the raised platform.

Ruby was the first one out of their seat, ignoring the barman’s introduction of the next performer (something cheesy about outer space or whatever – nothing to Sapphire’s caliber) but her set of chair legs screeching across the floor wasn’t the only one. 

She took Sapphire’s hands in hers and squeezed, trying her very hardest to not jump up and down in place like an excited child. 

“You were beautiful, Sapphire!” she exclaimed before she could catch herself on the volume. She never minded others hearing, but she knew Sapphire was still shy to it. “I-I mean, you always are, but you  _ sounded _ —“

“Beautiful,” a man’s voice finished for her. Ruby whipped around, taking a stomping step towards the offender in a show of aggressive defense. 

“Bet I could make you sing even prettier in—”

That was all she heard, and frankly all she needed to hear to make up her mind on having a talk with Amethyst about not warning them on the kind of place they were going beforehand. At least then she could have been mentally prepared. 

Sapphire walked them out, dragging Ruby by the hand, completely dismissing the comment made before and any others that followed. They were out the door, into the relatively smoke -free air (save for the occasional patio seating), and down a full block before Sapphire loosened up, her shoulders falling and her nails no longer digging into Ruby’s thumb.

“…so, did you say I was good?” She asked, a layer of delicate nervousness coating her words, “I couldn’t really hear what you said inside.” 

“Of course you are!” Ruby grinned, taking in her first deep breath of fresh air in what felt like ages and jumping ahead of Sapphire in her excitement. The subtle blush high on the girl’s cheeks only gave her more steam. “I can’t believe you haven’t been doing that this whole time!” 

“I was so nervous to do it on my own.” Sapphire smiled as Ruby pointed around wildly to every passing venue, saying that she could perform here or there, or that one across the way. “I didn’t even remember to give the band music.” She huffed an embarrassed laugh at herself before adding, “Someone did hand me a ten on the way out,” and opened her palm to show Ruby a crumpled-up bill. 

“See!” Ruby’s feet did a little skip against her will. “You didn’t need them, you could have done it all on your own.”

“I didn’t want to, though,” she replied softly, leaning into Ruby’s jumpy stride and sneaking a kiss to her bare shoulder. It left a smudge of lipstick that she quickly rubbed away.  

They chatted down the busy bar street hand in hand, pushed close to each other only half out of the necessity to not take up the entire walkway. Occasionally a door would open, spilling out a group of less-than-sober friends and a few bars of an overly-loud musician’s performance, or sometimes just whatever was on the radio. It was relaxing; helped ease Ruby down from her overexcitement and Sapphire out of her nerves that she had somehow messed up, despite Ruby’s consistent praise and her now neatly-folded tip. 

Right as they passed one of the town’s more popular venues, an oddly out of place pizza joint whose claim to fame was as much their odd topping selection as it was the two pretty cashiers, doors slammed open, letting out a group of rowdy teenagers and a techno intro to a song Ruby knew embarrassingly well. 

She tried to not make eye contact with Sapphire, hoping not to draw attention to the way her fingers had started to tap on her thigh against her will. With how Ruby did subtlety, the best case scenario would be Sapphire seeing her little rhythmic tic; worst, she would remember a particular instance when an eight-bit rendition of his same song had rudely interrupted their first kiss.

To her horror, Sapphire started to hum along. Softly at first, then with a bit more confidence once the door had shut to make up for the muffling. 

“You like this song, right?” Judging by the way she looked at Ruby when she said it, with a smile ready to bloom into a grin and a skip in her step that pulled Ruby along, she didn’t even need to ask. 

“Me? Uh—” Ruby’s voice cracked, and her fingers picked up speed, drumming on the half note now. 

“I can’t help it if I make a scene,” Sapphire strung the words together somewhere between a song and just speaking, but that smile on her face had skipped right over a grin and gone straight to a smirk. 

She gave Ruby’s stiff shoulder a nudge at the second verse, putting more effort into it. This song was catchy, auto-tuned to hell and back, and Ruby loved it, but it sounded like something completely new in Sapphire’s low, smooth voice. 

“I want you to sing with me, you dork.” Sapphire gave her a shove this time, knocking Ruby into the other ‘lane’ of the sidewalk. “I know you know the words.” 

Ruby’s shoulders shot up straight, putting a stiffness to her walk that went all the way down to her feet. She forced a laugh.

“To this song? No way!” She looked at Sapphire sideways and muttered, “Not all of them.” 

“I’ve got a pair of eyes that they’re getting lost in.” Between waiting hopefully for Ruby to join in and her own slow pace of forming words, Sapphire was bound to be at least a full page’s worth of music behind the song, but it wasn’t much of an issue. They were almost down the block now, and any bits of music that could have carried that far were blocked out by the restaurant’s door. “They’re hypnotized by the way I’m  _ walking. _ ” 

A very overdramatic swing of Sapphire’s hips sent Ruby stumbling over the curb and into a shallow puddle, soaking the toes of her sneakers and splashing her ankles with dirty water.  She stood there in disbelief for a second before the water made it to her socks and prompted her out of the roadside. The squeal of her shoes’ wet rubber was like little squeaky toys behind her as she chased after Sapphire to return the favor, barreling sideways into her and sending her into the muddy grass with a smile. It didn’t even faze her, though it did slow her down as the low heels on her shoes tried to sink into the dirt like fence posts. She continued, her little performance rudely interrupted by her own giggling. 

“Everybody needs a friend,” she held the words out far too long, a mockery of the original tune, and threw both hands out wildly, clasping them around one of Ruby’s to emphasize the next part, “And I’ve got you,  _ and only you _ !” 

“Those aren’t even the words,” Ruby snorted, tugging Sapphire up out of the mud that had caked onto the bottoms of her shoes. Ruby had always heard that a good performer let nothing stand in their way, and Sapphire certainly was good, if not completely goofy and adrenaline-drunk at the moment. 

It was clear Sapphire was getting very carried away, but Ruby couldn’t think of any good reason to try to reel her in, other than to uphold the girl’s reserved and quiet nature to the public, but everyone around them was a stranger, drunk, or both. Besides, Ruby had never seen her like this – confident, silly,  _ relaxed. _  It was a contradiction to every front she had so firmly held up.

Sapphire belted out the next part with more energy than Ruby though the girl was capable of, turning with her steps in a spin that made her skirt flair out like a Disney princess.  

“So many I can’t even name them! Can you blame me, I’m too famous.” Her hair was thrown messily over one shoulder by the momentum from her turn. Her dress settled back down around her knees her and silence followed, easing down until it became awkward and stagnant, as if she hadn’t just broken into a seemingly spontaneous musical number in the middle of town. 

It was quiet, and nobody was staring at them, but Sapphire’s eyes, brushed into view by centrifugal force, were waiting and eager, and showed little of the shyness from before. Ruby couldn’t leave her hanging, even if Sapphire did settle her with the most boring part of the song. 

“H-haven’t you noticed you’re a star?” Her voice was already cracking, forced far too high in imitation of the original song, forgetting that it would already match perfectly in contrast with Sapphire’s. “And coming into view as my world keeps turning—”

“Ruby!” Sapphire reanimated in an instant, clasping her hands together with quiet glee and a smile that nearly scrunched her eyes shut. “ _ Those  _ aren’t the right words, either.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you ever write something and it embarrassed YOU?  
> Anyway, almost 4 months between updates to the day. Killin' it. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with it! All your support really keeps me going, and i promise i read and love every comment, even if i don't reply to them all. I always get so thrilled to see a message in my inbox.   
>  My hope is to finish this story before my senior semester starts up, but between internships and work, its kind of up in the air, though we are nearing the end.   
> As usual, a special thank you to Rhinocio for so nicely fixing up my writing. Without their hard work, i might as well just post the shitpost style outlines i have drawn up and call it a day.


	12. Road Block

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The usual HUGE thank you to Rhinocio for beta-ing now over 44,000 words of this. They do such a wonderful job

 

Sapphire could make Ruby feel pride like she’d never felt it before. She gave a whole new feel to the word, almost until it could be called something like  _ confidence.  _ The way Sapphire spoke her name on a soft breath of laughter, a laugh whisked away by the same pleasant breeze that curled in her hair and drew its curtain away from her face, was nothing short of enchanting. It was like a spark, and the smile that split her pretty lips afterwards a full-on shock of electricity that left Ruby’s limbs pleasantly numb and buzzing with sturdy assurance that yes,  _ she  _ was the one who caused this,  _ she  _ was the one, possibly the only one in this entire galaxy, that could bring such a put-together, dainty girl to snorting laughter. She clapped a hand to Ruby’s shoulder and her other to her knee, doubled over in breathless giggles; Ruby would gladly take the blame for it all. 

“Y-you saved me,” Sapphire barely got out, her words caught between snickering exhales and deep inhales. 

“I saved you?” Ruby repeated, flushed face turning to an expression of concern as she leaned down to Sapphire’s level. She reached out a hand to part the waterfall of the girl’s hair that had her completely covered like a veil. Her fingers absently took a bouncy curl between them, twirling it to expel some twinges of energy still making their way out of her body.

“Yes,” Sapphire snorted, carefully wiping at the corner of her eye to avoid smudging her makeup, “From making a fool of myself alo--” 

Ruby had read somewhere that fate was a set path, written in ink from the moment you entered the living world by some unnamed higher power that supposedly had a rhyme and reason to everything it put you through.  Every time “smooth sailing” was written for Ruby, it was only ever in a few words, a page, at most, and the thundering call that boomed after her signaled its timely end. 

“Thank god we found the source of that  _ noise _ .” The way the sneering sound of the voice cut through Sapphire’s laughter was like a speeding car, zooming down a residential street while blasting unappealing music at some inconsiderate hour of the night. 

If Ruby could jump theoretical ship, escape this vortex that never failed to shove her to colliding with this horrible menacing monster, she would. Though only if she could take Sapphire to shore safely with her. 

The sound was worse than nails on a chalkboard; it drew Ruby’s blood from dreamy calm to boiling, and made the energy that had pooled in her hands, hot and eager to lose themselves in the soft waves of Sapphire’s hair, zip back into her chest, coiling there like a spring, ready to lash out. 

Sapphire’s cool hand on her shoulder felt like it should have sizzled on contact, her soft but dull, “Come on, Ruby,” breezing past her ears like steam. The tug of little fingers curled around hers would have been enough to drag her away if the insult was all she heard, but the screech of metal on concrete as a chair scooted away from its table held her in place like a ball and chain. 

Ruby whipped around with a scowl ready on her face, first to the bar across the street in hopes that her ever-present antagonist was farther away than the volume of her voice let on, but naturally that wasn’t the case. It could only be the venue just feet behind them.

To Ruby’s morbid surprise, Jasper seemed to have friends. Or prisoners, as she was more inclined to think. Two girls, sitting under the flickering neon sign on the patio that, after a moment of squinting inspection, read  _ Water Witch ( _ before listing all the obscure and local brews it carried). Even in her fizzling irritation, Ruby found it in herself to scoff. It would be one of those pompous artsy places, wouldn’t it?

“And that it  _ stopped,”  _ Jasper sneered, a toothy grin splitting her face as she lumbered over, footfalls heavy enough to rattle the lopsided chair she had gotten up from. She always did stomp on purpose, as far back as Ruby could remember. To her surprise, neither of Jasper’s companions jeered in the way Ruby expected. One seemed to cower behind a mug of what was very obviously some kind of juice. The other seemed as uninterested as if Jasper had gotten up to use the ladies’ room, picking something out of her teeth and paying the scene very little mind. They both seemed terrible -- a little oddly familiar, though delightful in contrast to Jasper. 

The girl stood like a construction blockade in their path, ugly orange shirt and all, with hands on her hips and an expectant smile on her face, waiting for Ruby to lash out like a territorial lap dog. 

Ruby didn’t need to see the roll to Sapphire’s eyes to know it was happening; the way her low heels clacked especially loud on the pathway and her nails pressed to Ruby’s palm in warning was enough to get her irritation very clearly across without facial expression. With a second, more stubborn tug on Ruby’s hand, Sapphire did something incredible: she walked away. She guided them  _ around _ Jasper, avoiding her like the murky water that gathered in the dips in the concrete, even though the alternate route drug the both of them through the mud. The only sign of struggle was from Sapphire, picking her legs up a little awkwardly high to dislodge her heels from the mud’s sinking grip. 

“Are you just gonna let her say that stuff?!” Ruby half-whispered, shocked, as if walking away from this single battle would mean her loss in the war the two of them had been waging for what felt like decades.  

“Yes, I am,” Sapphire said, a little above her usual volume, and maybe Ruby was thinking too much into it, but she would swear the brush of Sapphire’s skirt against Jasper’s leg as they passed was done with as much malicious intent as the action could hold, “Nobody needs to get hurt.” She gave Ruby’s hand a painfully tight squeeze. “We’ll find a new path.” 

Ruby tentatively glanced over her shoulder to the lion’s mane that was the back of Jasper’s head, moving only slightly by the comforting breeze. It was surreal, like this was all happening underwater, every step slow and floaty, yet heavy from the atmospheric pressure. The odd mixture of fear and overall letdown of the whole situation kind of felt like taking an accidental breath of sea water, too.  

“All she wants is a rise out of you.” 

The bark of a scoff from behind them was like a clap of thunder over calm waters. “It’s a lot easier to get from someone too slow to figure that out.” 

Everything caught up to itself in a flash, like the world had hit fast-forward when it only meant play. Ruby was spun around like a rag doll in her momentary awe over the situation, and slapped awake by a face full of puffy blonde hair that stuck to her lips until gently wiped away. 

“You’re jealous,” Sapphire breathed, monotone and calm as ever. The stomp of her little heeled shoe on the curbside rang out louder than her words, which was all the more impressive considering how little she weighed. 

This must have been what it looked like for Sapphire all those months ago, pushed behind Ruby for safekeeping on the deck of a stranger’s backyard, potentially a bit tipsy, and certainly confused by how things had ended up like this. From this vantage point, guarded by someone half the size of the offence, it was a wonder Sapphire wanted anything to do with her after that night.

Ruby had always sported her bumps and bruises like trophies and ribbons, but the thought of Sapphire with anything more than the occasional freckle marring her skin made Ruby feel sick to her stomach. She had never seen the girl suffer as much as a paper cut, and it needed to stay that way.  Their situation was terrifying and not because of Jasper, but because it was  _ Sapphire _ standing between them. 

That wasn’t to say, though, that Jasper wasn’t the very definition of menacing, bent forward in the bar’s gated patio entry and looming over the two of them like any good predator would, her pale hair diffusing the bleary string lights, making her glow like some deep sea creature that was better left undiscovered in the depths. With the proximity, Ruby couldn’t help but stare up. An ache in her neck began to form as her eyes hyper-focused on the tiny crook in the bridge of Jasper’s nose. Ruby’s hand had felt bruised for weeks -- she even wondered if she’d broken it -- and that chip in her face was all Jasper had to show for it. It didn’t seem fair. 

Jasper’s smile turned to a bare of her teeth as she spoke -- “What could I possible be jealous of?” -- and this time a well-timed snicker came from one of her little comrades, though it was shut up immediately with two squirrely hands clasp to the mouth the moment Sapphire’s gaze visibly shifted. Jasper, however, never faltered, and who would in the face of someone as non-threatening as Sapphire? “If I’m missing something, by all means--”

“You call Ruby weak,” Sapphire took a daring step forward, mud squelching out from under her shoe with the force. She ended hardly an inch from stepping on their aggressor’s toes. To be fair, it would have been Jasper’s own fault had her toes been stepped on; who wore flip flops in February? “And slow, and—“  

Ruby tracked Jasper’s hands, her whole body twitching with a startled jolt at even the slightest flex to the girl’s fingers. The fact that they had gone this long and still kept things non-physical should speak for itself, but Ruby wanted to be ready at a moment’s notice. Jasper wasn’t exactly known to play fair. 

“Sapphire—“ Ruby interrupted, but her warning hand was batted away with a slap that stung the top of her palm, drawing a different set of snickers from the reinforcements at Jasper’s table. These ones didn’t stop when Ruby turned her best glare their way, though she did give up fairly quickly. She needed to watch Sapphire more than the tired-looking girl getting a kick out of her. 

“Don’t forget  _ dyke,”  _ Jasper added with amusement and a flick of her wide eyes at Ruby, as if the girl hadn’t heard that one enough times to take the bite out of it. If she was being completely honest, it still had some sting left in it.  

“ _ Because _ ,“ Sapphire was commanding and fierce and  _ quiet _ , almost whispering, and every other sound snuffed itself out to let her voice be heard. No cars zoomed past, no bar radios mixed together; all musicians took a break, and even the neon signs hushed their buzzing, scared into silence, and Ruby couldn’t blame them. Most unnerving of all was the stillness that befell Jasper. “You talk to her like the mirror in your room.” 

Sapphire’s hand felt clammy against Ruby’s, and her breath was shallow, coming fast and short between her words, as if she would overexert herself from this alone. 

“You think if you just reflect everything you hate about  _ yourself  _ onto someone else that it will go away.” She shuffled her feet that inch further, punctuating her words by stubbing her shoe against Jasper’s toe. “That people won’t realize you just can’t ever stop _ talking about yourself.” _

There was a pause in which Ruby stood wide-eyed, considering taking Sapphire by the hand and sprinting as fast as her short legs could carry them, but the small window in which that might have been a viable option slammed shut before her feet could commit to it. 

“You’re pretty  _ funny _ , girl.” But there was no sign of amusement on Jasper’s face, no grin or smirk or throaty chuckle. 

Ruby’s feet started to tingle with a plea for movement, pins and needles slowly creeping up her ankles. Her left foot said “Strike!” and her right said “Flee!” but all she really said was a hushed and urgent whimper of, “Sapphire,” tugging on the girl’s hand like a needy child.  

Sapphire, with all her intimidating grace, ignored her. 

“Do you really think no one notices how you look at her?” Sapphire’s head turned sharply to the table of girls, now both looking generally uncomfortable, one stirring her drink with an antsy finger, trying to ignore the whole situation, and the other squinting over at them. 

Jasper straightened up instantly, hands curling in on themselves and springing stiffly to her sides, but there was no threat to the motion. She was rigid, like all her joints had frozen up, making the uncomfortable weight shift to her back foot all the more obvious.  

For every awkward, shuffling step back, Sapphire took a brave, full step forward. 

“You’re frightened and disgusted with yourself,” Sapphire breathed, almost a hiss as her voice got quieter and quieter, consumed again by the sudden uproar of ambient noise. “You think if you just pretend, even for the rest of your life, that everything will work itself out.”

Ruby’s feet stuck to the pavement like it had turned to liquid and sucked her in up to her knees. All she could do was listen on in cold, sinking suspicion at the lack of questioning inflection to the end of Sapphire’s interrogations, and hold her back. Sapphire was already to arms reach, anchored only by Ruby’s tight grip on her hand. For probably the first and only time ever, Ruby was thankful for her anxieties keeping her back. 

“Let me tell you:” With one final step forward, Sapphire was at the end of her tether, leaning forward but with little effort to break free from Ruby’s grip. “That isn’t how this works.”  

Ruby stood frozen in that awful purgatory between realization and panic, hands gripping white-knuckled to Sapphire’s. She felt more like a disconnected spectator now than the main reason for this trade of heated words through gritted teeth. 

Tension diffused like a break in a pipe, letting off all the built-up steam in one uncharacteristically soft, “Yeah, right,” from Jasper, who rolled her eyes before stuffing her hands in her pockets, obviously shaken and even more obviously trying to shrug it off.    
  
___________________________________________________________________

They walked away hand in hand, awkwardly silent. Ruby could feel Sapphire’s pulse hammering between their laced fingers. Her palms were sweaty despite the early year chill, her fingers stiff and held as if she lacked joints completely. 

Ruby just stared, internally struggling to convince words to make the short trip from her brain to her mouth, but like any time she  _ needed  _ to say something, they got held up in the throat, stuck and piling up on each other like a landslide. Inevitably they made it out one by one, forced and disjointed. 

“That was…intense.” Ruby offered an off smile with the comment, watching Sapphire closely for any change in her vacant, slightly tense expression. 

Sapphire only hummed, the sound blending with the ambient noises of the lesser-traveled suburban street they had found their way to. Ruby hadn’t much been concerned with where they were headed as long as it was  _ away, _ and the direction Sapphire had taken off for, with a decided and final turn on her heels that made her dress flair out, fit the bill well enough. 

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about it,” Sapphire said to the open air in front of her, her tone one of ashamed admittance that only helped confirm the sinking suspicion in Ruby’s stomach. “That guy in the bar was a good warm up, though.” She smiled, a little life springing back into her, and her fingers finally softening from their mannequin-like pose.

Ruby let out an exaggerated groan, clinging to the subject change like a lifeline to turn this evening back around; “I shoulda done something about him.”  

They needed to talk about this, Ruby knew. Sit down and carefully sort through everything Sapphire had let pouring out, but Ruby knew just as well that Sapphire would need time to settle before any of it. She was riled and shaken, and this was supposed to be a  _ good  _ night, not a time for rifling through this complicated mess of self-loathing and insecurity. 

“I woulda knocked over his drink if you let me!” Ruby grumbled, acting out the action by throwing a punch at the corner street sign, tapping it with her knuckles just enough to make a sound.  It made Sapphire giggle, and Ruby knew she couldn’t stop at just that if her duel with an inanimate object was cheering her up. Ruby grinned before putting on a serious face, lips pursed and eyes squinted almost shut as another two punches honed in on the metal pole. 

“Right in his lap -- ruin those stupid blingy jeans of his.” She looked back at Sapphire, shaking her left hand through the cold air to numb the sting in her fingers. The street sign may have been the true winner, but the snickering laughter from the pretty girl at her side was all Ruby had been fighting for in the first place.

“They were  _ hideous,”  _ Sapphire chuckled, snatching Ruby’s hand mid-motion and pressing a warm kiss to the reddened splotches on the back of it. “Did you see his  _ shoes?”  _ She continued, face lighting up with a spark of glee at the remembrance. “I think I’ve seen middle schoolers with the same ones.” 

****

Keys jingling out of a handbag were what clued Ruby in to their midnight stroll’s destination. The streets had been building a vague sense of familiarity, but honestly most of the newer parts of town looked all the same, and she had very little sense of direction to begin with. Sapphire could have been taking her in a big circle and Ruby wouldn’t have noticed until they made it back to the bar street, and maybe even not then, what with how enthralled in pleasant conversation she was, and how lost in the way Sapphire’s little nose would wrinkle up when she laughed, or how her cheeks flushed a dark wine color when Ruby pushed the joke a little too far, giving the girl no moment to catch her breath in any other way than in an unladylike snort. 

“Don’t you know the rules?” Ruby joked, emboldened by the eight or so blocks of social success she had had, “You at least gotta take your date to dinner before taking her back to your place.”

She expected Sapphire to falter a little, maybe offer a polite apology or say that Ruby didn’t  _ have to,  _ but it seemed their cheerful banter had had the same effect on her. 

“I thought you would leap at another chance to come into my room,” She said coyly, before hopping to take the first few metal steps two at a time. 

(Instinctively, Ruby reached for her pocket to silence her phone. Even if Sapphire’s snickering at the precaution was a little too loud to overlook, Ruby wasn’t going to take any chances.)  

“You got me there,” she readily admitted, following behind Sapphire with quick steps to try to catch up. She tried harder, though, with a skip in her pulse, to not notice so intently just how much of the backs of Sapphire’s thighs she could see from her place a few steps below her.

As the door swung open, Ruby had half a mind to ask if Sapphire had a roommate she hadn’t heard about, or really  _ make sure there wasn’t one _ , but the words died on her tongue as the main room’s light was flicked on, replaced instead with a worried, apologetic gasp of, “Oh, Sapphire…” 

The girl must have been robbed, and the only thing that made Ruby second guess herself for even a moment was how unfazed Sapphire was by the decorative massacre before her. There were kitchen things in the living room and living room things in the kitchen. Every visible surface was buried in books or loose papers, to the point where Ruby wondered if there was a coffee table at all, or just structurally sound reading material that made its home at the foot of the couch, which, too, was questionably just folded laundry. 

A booby-trap of heeled shoes tried to trip Ruby just left of the entryway as Sapphire moved aside to add another pair to it. She sighed in relief as she expertly kicked off her shoes, using her toes to push the straps off her ankles without even unbuckling them.  Mechanically and in a bit of a shock, Ruby tried to copy her. It was the only appropriate thing she could think to do.

“Oh, you don’t have to,” Sapphire offered once Ruby gave up and bent down to fumble with the laces of her sneakers, going about it blind as she continued to scan the room in slack jawed disbelief. “I just hate wearing shoes, I’m not worried about tracking dirt in, or anything.”

Ruby almost mumbled something like  _ I can see that _ before her manners caught her. Everything was actually fairly  _ clean _ , Ruby was finding, and unlike Amethyst’s rat’s nest-style hoarding, it did seemed to have a system, even if Ruby couldn’t understand it yet. She had seen Sapphire’s notes; there was no way there wasn’t a logical and organized reason Sapphire kept makeup on the bookshelf and books just about everywhere else. 

“Sorry about the clutter,” Sapphire offered as a side note, none too concerned with it, judging from her tone. She locked the door behind them, tossing her keys into the black hole of shoes at her feet.

“Uh, no, it's fine!” Ruby blurted out too quickly, unsure if she should set her sneakers in Sapphire’s shoe hoard or if that would ruin the system she was praying was real, and not just made up as a way to cope. “What clutter?” She forced a single laugh, decided it didn’t really matter, and left her shoes smack in front of the door. Quickly, she trotted after Sapphire, breathing a sigh of relief that the carpet under her feet was soft and clean and obviously vacuumed regularly. 

The hours Ruby had spent last semester rigorously cleaning up her dorm, fretting over what Sapphire -- perfect,  _ organized  _ Sapphire -- would think in the face of her unalphabetized bookcase and mismatched bedsheets had been a huge waste of effort. 

The tidal wave’s worth of mess was quickly overlooked. Be it the rose-tinted glasses or the fact that Sapphire shared Ruby’s admitted opinion that shaped macaroni tasted  _ totally different  _ than the regular kind, Ruby wasn’t sure. Either way, the miniature leaning tower of neatly folded blouses taking up the recliner to her right didn’t bother Ruby any more. At least, not a lot. 

Instead, she was seated on the newly-cleared-off couch, hunched over a bowl of Crying Breakfast Friends mac and cheese she had balanced on her knee, and throwing down her game controller every chance she got in order to shovel another spoonful into her mouth, or she missed a note. She had bragged about her spot on the leaderboard at Funland as soon as Sapphire had pulled out her small collection of game discs, pointing to Meat Beat Mania and saying, “This one’s the best.” Ruby couldn’t lose. 

_ Could not  _ and  _ should not  _ always mixed themselves up in Ruby’s mind, because she  _ should not  _ have lost. But she did. It was a vast victory, with Sapphire, calm-faced, nearly tripling her score, while Ruby, face scrunched up in tongue biting concentration, fingers clumsily slamming down, missed buttons, or hit two at the same time. 

“That was just a warm up,” Ruby grumbled, inhaling another few spoonfuls of dinner while the game loaded the second stage. 

Try two didn’t go much better, since Ruby’s wide thumbs kept mashing incorrect buttons (to her increasing irritation). Sapphire, in contrast, beat the game’s previous high score with only a surprised little, “Oh!” at her accomplishment. 

Ruby let out an agitated groan, set the controller on her opposite knee, and sank back into the couch in defeat. 

“I’m  _ way _ better at the cabinet version,” she said, in a final attempt to save her pride, crossing her hands over her chest. “It’s completely different!” Sapphire snickered, biting the inside of her cheek to keep herself from smiling.

“Really?” she asked, mocking interest and leaning back alongside Ruby, putting a hand on her thigh just above the troublesome controller. 

“The motion sensor thing is how it was meant to be played! It’s so hard to push these little buttons with my fingers, I—“ The controller vibrated as the final score tumbled down on the TV screen. Sapphire stifled a chuckle, and if she hadn’t spoken afterwards, Ruby would have thought it was a jab at her low score. 

“I thought your fingerwork was pretty good,” Sapphire said with a smile, biting her tongue to try to keep it from forming into a smirk. 

“Well, thanks, but I still lost,” Ruby huffed, pushing the controller onto the coffee table (which, as it turned out, wasn’t  _ completely  _ books, as Sapphire had scooted some of the top layer to make space for their dinner). She slumped back into the couch with a sigh from both parties, intent on pouting for another good minute. 

“How do you even do it with your hair in your face?” she asked, turning to Sapphire, who was still battling a grin. “Can you see the future or something?” The snickering that followed only made Ruby more suspicious, narrowing her eyes at Sapphire until the pink sheen on the girl’s cheeks deepened enough to reveal itself as not makeup at all, and the slim fingered hand that had been slowly creeping its way up Ruby’s leg helped put two and two together. 

“Uh, you’re not—“ Ruby shot up straight, extracting herself from the plush grip of couch cushions because her skin was starting to blend in with its burgundy pillows. “You’re not talking about the game anymore.” It should have been a question, but it didn’t need to be. Instead, it was a wide-eyed observation, followed by a giggling affirmation of a hum and a kiss to her cheek that under regular, non-flushed faced circumstances, would have burned, not sent chills down her spine. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I stand with Ruby and Sapphire on the macaroni debate. The shaped kind is far superior. 
> 
> I know in the show Sapphire is seen as pretty nonconfrontational and, as of yet, not shown with a weapon, but I can't be swayed that she doesn't have some serious bite to her. Garnet says she is THEIR fury, not just Ruby's, so Sapphire's gotta have something up her puffy sleeves to kick some serious butt. Even if not in a physical way. 
> 
>  
> 
> Next chapters gonna get plot heavy and uh dirty oops. There should be only 2 or 3 more to go, depending how i split it up!


End file.
